Fault Lines
by tractus.solitarius
Summary: (Summary Updated) How can you control your abilities when you can barely control your own mind? This is a story of how Skye single-handedly destroys all of S.H.I.E.L.D. in one menacing blow. Deals with mind control, powered people, and a couple of rage-inducing alien artifacts. Post 2x10. Events after the prologue start at chapter 23.
1. Prologue

**This is my first AoS fic. I decided to finally write one after the midseason finale practically blew my mind. It's f***** awesome! Hope you guys liked it as much as I did.**

**Disclaimer: **_Agents of SHIELD is not mine, so as its characters. This story contains spoilers from the season 2 winter finale, so if you haven't seen it yet, you have to stop right now. May contain some triggers about suicide. Consider yourself warned._

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"Kill me." Skye murmurs, half wondering if everyone in her team could see her. She strongly wished they couldn't. The thought of Fitzsimmons… of May, seeing her like this, of hearing her say those words—those are not the words she wanted them to remember her by.

Her eyes are tightly shut, but she knows—she knows exactly how much damage she's caused… and still causing. She does not have to tear her eyes open to see the darkness inside her. Not if it is already clawing its way out of her without any regard for the wreckage it could leave behind.

Agent Lumley was right; wherever she goes, death follows.

Though he clearly failed to mention that she'll be the one causing them.

"Not an option, Skye." Coulson yells at her over the almost ear-splitting sounds of huge boulders bursting into specks of dust around him. He steps forward towards his distressed agent, barely able to remain upright given the huge tremors from the earth where he stood, his ICER held tightly on his hands.

Skye's eyes burst open when she hears Coulson's voice. _Oh god._ He should not be here. He should not be anywhere near her. She'd kill him. "Don't come near me!" she warns him, and takes a step back. A strong tremor liberated itself as she took that one step. Coulson falls on his knees.

Blinding fear fills hear heart as she saw her boss almost fall to his death, into the cliff she inadvertently creates out of nowhere.

Desperation was clear in her voice as she spoke again. "Lance," she calls out, knowing fully well where the former mercenary is located, and can hear her through the earwigs she's still wearing. "We already talked about this. Take the shot!"

"He would not do it." Coulson counters immediately. "Never planned to in the first place."

When the hot piercing pain indeed does not come, Skye's panic rose significantly. She should have thought that their boss could easily get Hunter to flip. She could tell from the get-go that the former mercenary wasn't totally on board with her plan, but the need to believe that he was felt much easier for her to accept.

"He told me where you'd be." Coulson said, evading another piece of rock that explodes near his general direction. "Let's go home, Skye."

She thinks he misses a very important point. There is no way she could go back. There's no home for her to go back to. She already turned it into a pile of rocks. Or did he forget? "Coulson, this is not something you can save me from."

Coulson briefly wonders how on earth he manage to stay standing up, given all the earthquakes his young agent emits, but decided not to dwell on it. He fights back a small smile, "you cannot stop me from trying." He already saved her once; he could definitely do it again.

Skye's nails are digging into her palms, practically drawing blood, but she hardly notices the pain. Her whole body trembles with the quakes she creates, and she could not stop them. She could not stop anything.

Why couldn't they get it? She's a lost cause. She's beyond saving. "I don't want to hurt anyone anymore."

"I know." Coulson tells her. "So let us help you."

She lets out a strangled sound. Wave upon wave of inexorable force leaves her core, obliterating the earth surrounding her like it was nothing. "I'm sorry, AC."

"It's gonna be okay, Skye." He tells her, sounding less like the director of SHIELD and more like the paternal figure she had grown to love. For a second she considers how much better her life would have been if he was the one who turned out to be her father, not Cal. Maybe it wouldn't turn out as shitty as it is now.

She closes her eyes once more. Sighs in resignation. "Yes it is."

Coulson's breath gets caught in his throat as he hears and senses the finality in his agent's voice, and before he could do anything, the worst of his nightmares comes to life in front of his eyes.

A sidearm slowly finds its way to her temple. Even at a distance, he could tell that what she holds in her hands is not a weapon designed to merely incapacitate. It's designed to kill. "Put that gun down, Skye." He begs.

Regardless of the tremendous amount of debris surrounding her, Coulson could still see how hard she's trying to control her trembling hand. "You cannot save me, AC," she tells him, "…but at least let me try to save all of you."

"No, no, no Skye… no!" He scrambles towards her, towards the hacker he chose to trust more than anything in this world. By some cruel hand of fate, Coulson just couldn't close the distance between them. "No!"

"I will save you." She mumbles softly, almost like a plea. Maybe it was.

Coulson's knees nearly buckles at her words. Doesn't she know that by doing what she's about to do, she'll be accomplishing the exact opposite of what she hopes to achieve? "Do not scare me like this, Skye!"

"I'm scared, too." She looks down at him from where she stood and whispers, her eyes indeed full of fear. It reminded him just how young this agent really was. She has already seen too much, suffered too much, given her age.

"I do not want to end up like him." She mumbles softly. Like her father. A monster.

Watching her, Coulson could tell that her fear is not of what's about to come. Its not fear of having her skin pierced once more by an unforgiving bullet, inflicted this time by her own hands. Hell, it's not even fear of dying.

The fear that he saw… it was fear of herself, of what she can do.

Of what she had become.

And by god, Coulson has never seen Skye that terrified before. Not when she woke up distressed and confused days after she was almost shot dead by Quinn. Not after the home she wanted to protect went down in flames in the hands of Hydra. Not even after he told her that her roots could possibly be not of this earth.

He struggles to stand, to fight the tremors that keeps on pushing him down on the ground. His once pristine shirt now in tatters because of the huge amount of force coming from her, while his skin burns at the number of scrapes he's sustained dodging every projectile that comes his way. "Ending your life is not taking that fear away, Skye."

She shakes her head minutely, forcing tears to finally flow freely from her eyes. "It's not my own fear I'm trying to take away, A.C," she tells him, her voice the faintest sound heard amidst the chaos. She saw him, the way he looked at her the first time he realize that she's no longer the Skye he first met. The way his eyes widened at the realization that it was her that caused the earthquakes—that she was the epicenter of all the chaos around them.

Coulson almost screamed at her how wrong she is to think like that. She has no idea what his real fear is. She has absolutely no clue that by doing what she's doing right now, at this exact moment, she's making that very fear come to life.

He fights his way through the torrent of rocks around her and breaches the inner sanctum of waves that seem to encase her. He had no idea how he was able to do so, but for some reason, he wanted to believe that it was because she lets him to. He could feel it. "Me… the team—our team—we are not afraid of you Skye."

She hesitates. Loosens her rigid grip on her weapon slightly. His pleading eyes almost made her put the gun down, almost made her want to save herself as a favor not for her own pitiful self, but for him.

And then she remembers. The friend she had worked with, had laughed with, had fought with. One of the bravest men she has ever met. The friend who died thinking that he has failed to save her.

She then spots Coulson not ten feet away. Her heart seizes in her chest for all of the possible implications these hasty turn of events could bring. He would not stand a chance, being that close to her. "No…"

The team leader's proximity rekindles a particularly upsetting memory she much wanted to forget. The friend she had lost, transformed into stone by some ritualistic cosmic crystal she could barely understand, while her so-called gift turns him to dust.

Suddenly, she's back in that underground temple again. Closed off from the world around her, trapped and unable to move, standing completely still while she watched someone she cares about disintegrate in front of her eyes. All because of her. Another was dead person because of her.

She will never let that happen again.

With renewed conviction, she raises her gun once more. Holds the barrel so close to her head, much tighter this time. Its cool metal is pressing firmly against her skin, making her shiver.

"Do not let him die for nothing!" Coulson yells, desperation clear in his voice. He's grasping at straws now. "Tripp did not die for nothing!"

Tripp. She could not even say his name anymore. She could not even think of him without seeing him turn to stone over, and over again.

Maybe he did fail to save her after all.

"Tell them I'm sorry." She mutters gently. Her face seemed calmer this time. As if she already found her peace. "This is the only way."

Coulson felt as if his heart is imploding on itself. "No!"

"I'm sorry."

A shot rings out. She falls.

The world never felt so still.

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**I'm still considering whether I should write this as multichapter fic, or just leave this as it is. Hope you liked my story!**

**Reviews are welcome. Thank you for reading!**


	2. The City

_**So... i finally decided to continue this story. I have written 30,000+ words so far. Hope it isn't that bad.**_

_**Since this story is post 2x10 only, I won't be calling Skye Agent Daisy Johnson just yet. I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.**_

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_**San Juan, Puerto Rico**_

_**A few days ago**_

It is Coulson's voice Skye first hears when the walls of the temple began to shatter around her. She thinks she merely imagined it, and honestly, she has a pretty good reason to. Given the state she found him earlier, moments after her father almost kills him, there's no way he's down in the tunnels with her. And in hindsight, really, he's pretty damn lucky he wasn't.

For the first time since this colossal mind-fucking nightmare had begun, she feels thankful for Cal's temper. His kicks and punches may have just spared Coulson his life.

Spared him from a horrible, and most likely, a very painful death.

Unlike the filthy ground before her, Skye remains frozen where she stood, the unseen weight of the earth tightly wrapping her in its frightful grasp. She feels isolated from all the chaos, as if the destruction around her occurs in a different reality, or a different plane of existence. The feeling is strangely uncomforting.

It terrifies her.

Rooting her to the unstable ground is some invisible force that she could not explain. It keeps her upright, impeccably balanced. In fact, if she closed her eyes and ignored earth's grumbling protests she probably wouldn't even notice the shaking.

_Ah hell. _Her sudden improvement in equilibrium should be the least of her problems right now.

The console where the Obelisk was placed moments ago has already been turned to dust by some unimaginable energy, the earth shuddering mercilessly beneath it. The ceiling rocks, as high as they were, are crumbling to pieces, pounding ruthlessly against each other like unyielding adversaries in a hard-fought war. Debris falls on every possible surface, actively seeking for someone to crush, to punish.

A low hiss from a corner briefly catches Skye's attention. She squints to see better, but it does nothing to help. It's too dark. Whatever is hidden underneath the shadows, it slithers away before she makes anything out of it. She blinks, then it's gone.

But at that point, she thinks, why should she even give a damn?

Everything she lays her eyes on, every rock that crumples right in front of her, is Trip being annihilated to dust. Pulverized until there is nothing left but a void that cannot be filled again. In a blink of an eye, he was turned to nothing. An empty space.

Lifeless.

Dead.

The scene when he turns to stone and dies keeps on playing on and on inside her head like in some sick loop that she could not stop—each time Trip becomes deader than the last.

And she, being a wonderful friend that she is, merely stood there and watched.

_Fucking watched._

No wonder she'll soon be dead too. She clearly had it coming.

* * *

_**Somewhere on the other side of the temple**_

"Sir?"

The timely return Mack's familiar eyes sent Coulson some semblance of relief for the first time in a very long while. However, since the seasoned SHIELD agent already knew how fun it was to be thrown against the wall by a guy whose arms are as big as his torso, or maybe even bigger, he'd rather be sure first than risk an instant rewind. He doesn't think his back could not take any more blows today. "Who am I talking to?"

A look of confusion briefly clouds Mack's face as the real implication of the question hits him. He halts on his steps and, just as quickly, shakily scans his surroundings as if he's just seeing them for the first time. His face contorts in dread as though he just realized something horrible has happened, forcing him to take a couple of paces back. Despite the lack of proper lighting, Phil sees how swiftly his agent's features ashen when, as his intuition supposes, the weight of what he has done for the past few hours finally dawns on him. Mack shakes his head and runs a trembling hand on his face. "My god…"

_My god, indeed_, Coulson thinks. He genuinely feels bad for the guy. No one deserves being mind controlled by anyone, let along an ancient alien temple from god knows where. However, before he could utter any words of reassurance to him, a loud rumble erupts from the ground once more.

He should probably just save the reassurances for later.

Well, that is if they still have a 'later'.

"What the hell is going on?" Mack asks him, wide eyed and clearly scared shitless. His apparent inability to fully grasp his connection to the extent of damage the previous events had done left him with a truckload full of questions that he could not even begin to ask, for fear of knowing how bad the answer would be. Unfortunately, it also renders him utterly oblivious of the chaos happening around him.

"Um, we'll get back to that." Coulson said, eyes frantically searching every crevice for any signs which could point him to the direction of his other agent. "First, we have to find Skye."

"Skye?" Mack gapes at him, as if suddenly remembering something very important. Traces of terror brims his voice as he speaks. "She went past me. She tried to get—" He trails off as the frantic hammering of his heart went on and on, a relentless beating that makes his mouth completely unable to cooperate with his brain. "Oh god,she—s-she went inside!"

Apprehension grips Coulson's heart at Mack's words. He already feared that much, but he didn't expect the confirmation to make him feel a hundred times worse. His team could not bear another loss. Ward's betrayal had almost destroyed them. If anything happens to Skye—

_No, no._ Now is not the time for that.

Another tunnel collapses behind them, leaving the two agents with one less passageway to escape through. If they don't leave now, they'd certainly be trapped.

"Skye!" Coulson yells again, hoping that his voice could reach through the twenty foot barricade of solid rock in front of him. His words is becoming more and more urgent as every grumble reminds him how much time they have left before the entire structure blows. They really don't have much. "Damn it, Skye, where are you?"

Despite all the destruction, Mack still couldn't pull the shock off of his system. He forebodingly stares at the same wall, as though waiting for it to open and finally swallow him like it did with Skye. "I—I let her through." He mutters in disbelief.

If there's anything they could do that could help them, standing still and waiting for the ceiling to fall on top of their heads is clearly not it. Coulson knows this, so with a silent prayer that Skye is wise enough to find own her way out, he drags Mack with him.

As much as he wants to make sure that Skye is safe before heading back up, he knows he could be of more help to her alive than dead.

And honestly, he's not really that fond of dying.

So with everything falling apart, they started running.

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**Feel free to review my work (but no flames please). I will be updating very soon.**


	3. The Chaos

_**Since I'm stuck at home with nothing else to do, I figured I might as well update this thing. AoS is awesome... maybe because I don't own it.**_

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Skye may not have a clue as to how long she stood there without moving, but one thing's obvious: she isn't dead yet. As it turns out, huge, earth-shattering quakes aren't remotely enough to put her down.

Though whether or not that can be considered as fortunate is debatable.

Despite being confused by her ability to remain somehow inaccessible to the tons of old city wreckage caving in, Skye manages to put one foot in front of the other and run. It is sheer determination that fuels her, severing the invisible strings that tie her to the ground. Each step drains her, but she does not dare to stop. Stopping leads to thinking, which opens doors to regrets, which will invariably lead to grieving… and that part—that part she could not deal with just yet.

So she runs away, no destination in mind, just… away. The world grumbles at every movement she makes, but she does not let it stop her. The need to break away from it all is like a thirst she could not quench.

_Run, run, run._

Her mind is a jumbled mess, she couldn't think, couldn't see. She feels numb, disconnected to the world. Everything's so messed up that she doesn't even notice the tears falling from her eyes as the temple disappears behind her.

"This is all fucked up," she mutters heatedly to herself. As if the alien city does not know that already.

And like the traitor that it is, the ground seems to agree.

In that wretched place, Skye knew that something inside of her shifted. She felt a soul-altering change in her, and she fears that it is a change for the worse. It feels good, yes, but it is definitely not the right kind of good. It is as if someone threw a live wire inside her chest and left it in. Every part of her body tingles with some strange energy that she could not displace. She couldn't push it down, couldn't kill it. She should know—she tried.

Oh god, she tried.

_A billion bees burrowing under her skin, begging, craving for release..._

She senses a fountain of strength rising from deep within her, and she has never felt so powerful, so… alive.

But despite of it all, the better she feels, the more anxious she becomes.

She wanted to scream, to force air out of her lungs, to punch a wall, to claw the hairs out of her head. The need to take the edge off whatever it is she is feeling is overwhelming her to her core. She wanted to do something, anything, to flush it all out of her system. Let go of it all. But her mind tells her that she shouldn't. She could not explain why, she just knows.

So like a coward, she goes on running instead.

It didn't get her too far. Each successful step she takes plunges guilt deeper and deeper into her heart. She shouldn't feel this way. This good. She's not supposed to. It's not right. Trip is dead. In fragments. There is nothing to feel good about that.

'_We are human Skye. We just have the potential to be more…' _Raina's voice echoes inside her head once more, taunting her.

'_We finally get to find out what we become.'_

Tragedy strikes, kills gods know how many of her friends, yet she ends up feeling absolutely exhilarated. She feels changed. Reborn.

_Alive._

Her stomach then plummets at the thought. Feeling incredibly alive in the face of so much death… she should be ashamed of herself.

Is this it? Is this what she becomes?

_You're a monster, a murderer, a trail of death wherever you go…_

When she told that to her father, little did she know it would only take a couple of minutes—god, has it just been minutes?—before she turns out exactly like that herself. As it appears, an apple, despite being thrown miles and miles away by fate's cruel hand, still couldn't fall that far from the tree.

Trip was there, trying to save _her_.

He turned to stone because of _her_.

He is dead because of _her_.

"Skye! Phil!" A faint echo calls out from somewhere far behind, pulling her out of her own well of self blame before she could fully submerge herself in it. She halts in her steps, blinks. For a second or two, she could've sworn that the world stops moving too.

She turns, scans the rubble she had managed to pull herself out of, a looks for the source of the voice. Her chances of seeing anything past half a ton of boulders seems quite low. Maybe even lower than her chances of surviving.

Not that she actually thinks she could survive _this_.

But for some uncanny reason, the voice believes otherwise. It repeats her name again, though infused with more worry this time. It's not coming from behind her. It comes from above. "Skye!"

"May?" Skye cries out as she finally recognizes the owner of the voice.

"Skye!" May yells, sounding a little bit more relieved than she was before. But she also senses the urgency in her voice, and it alarms her. She's not as deadpan as she's used to, and based on experience, that's never a good thing. "What's happening down there?"

"I—I don't..." Skye stammers, instinctively looking around her for answers even though she knows that she wouldn't find any. All she could see is chaos. And destruction. "I don't know!"

"Is Coulson with you?" May frantically asks.

"Coulson?" Skye mumbles to herself, gaze landing onto the barely passable tunnel she just escaped from. The voice—his voice—she didn't imagine it. He did follow her to the temple. "Oh no."

She'd just lost Trip. If she is responsible for another death, Coulson's death—

The ground shakes once more. A little more violently than the last time.

"Skye!" May yells above successive blasts of walls crumbling. "Stay where you are. I'm gonna get you!"

Skye almost runs back to the direction she just left when, as she turns, she comes face to face with the man in question himself. A sigh of relief nearly escapes her throat, but Coulson beats her to it.

"Thank god! Are you alright?" Coulson asks her, out of breath, with a barely conscious Mack in tow. Struggling for balance is proving to be a very tedious task especially for someone who's half carrying a man twice his size across narrow tunnels of collapsing rock. "He passed out."

Skye feels far from alright, but at that point she thinks he doesn't really need to know that. She stares blankly at him.

"We are going to have a very long talk after this, Skye." He didn't mean to sound like an angry parent, telling his child to be ready to be reprimanded soon, but somehow, that's how his tone comes out. He almost smiles.

She ignores him completely. She doesn't even appear like she has heard him. Instead, she wordlessly helps him with Mack.

Though grateful for the help, the distress wreaking havoc in his agent's eyes did not go completely unnoticed. His jaw tightens. Something happened.

However, instead of commenting on it, and judging by Skye's posture, taking the risk of being completely shut out, he chooses to veer off topic. Something equally important, but not as personally taxing—at least not for Skye. Or so he thought. "I think I saw some kind of creature back there," Coulson commented off handedly, "she has thorns, and luminescent eyes. I'm not sure why but I could not shake the feeling that it's Raina."

"Yeah?" Skye absently replies. Skye knows that a whirlwind of thoughts should've come with that remark, but she is still very much out of sorts to give him any of her inputs. She guides them closer to where she last heard May's voice.

Coulson notices the slight tremble in her words. Something is really, really wrong. "The creature—do you think the obelisk did that?"

Skye's heart freezes.

_Oh yeah. That._

Why on earth should she care what that thing did? And hell, and even if she does, how on earth could she know? Even after all the chaos bringing that godforsaken relic down there had caused, Skye still remains clueless at what it does exactly. The only thing she knows about it is that it kills people. It had killed a lot of people.

Good people.

So, with nothing else left to say, she tells him with a wavering voice, the only thing she knows for certain. "Trip is—I saw him…"

Coulson halts in his step and looks at her in confusion. "Trip? He's with Fitzsimmons…"

She swallows, compartmentalizes, and conjures the best agent-cy voice she could muster. For some reason she could not meet her boss' eye. "No, he wasn't. He was with me. He's dead."

_I think I killed him._

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_**Kindly review if you have the time. I'd love to hear from you. Thanks! **_


	4. The Madness

**A/N: I'm back! My Internet decided to throw a temper tantrum last week. Here are two new chapters to make up for my prolonged absence.**

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_No._

_God, no._

_Fourteen. _Coulson thinks glumly as the weight of that news slowly sinks in. _Trip makes it 14._ Fourteen agents dying while he's director. There will probably more by the end of this day.

_How many? How many? How many more? _

Coulson wonders how the hell Fury always manages to afford having an estimate of acceptable loses when he could barely handle even one. His jaw tenses minutely at the thought. He hopes to god no one else will be added to the body count.

However, the newly minted SHIELD director hardly gets the time to process and grieve his losses because that is when May finally decides to descend from aboveground, a couple of ropes in hand.

"We have to go." She tells them.

Relieved to still have at least a couple of good things going on in this mission, Coulson coughs off the lump lodged in his throat. "Let's do that."

The junior agent, on the other hand, remains petrified where she stood. The tremors, which they all thought were about to subside, slowly begins to gain intensity once more. "Something bad is happening," she murmurs.

"We'll deal with that later." The Cavalry says as she eases Mack's weight from her apprentice's shoulders, "right now, we need to get out of here before this whole place blows."

A huge boulder crumples into dust somewhere to their far right. It isn't much of a surprise when everyone except May jumps at the sound. Coulson mutters a muffled curse.

Beside him, Skye had quite a different reaction. Every part of her started tingling. The strange buzzing in her ear which she thought she'd already shaken off returns with a vengeance. She tries covering them, but it's of no use. It's just too loud. Terror gets reignited in her eyes. "No, no..."

Skye's entire body suddenly erupts once more with that unexplainable burning sensation she couldn't drive out. Holding back a scream, her nails find their way back to the wounds they've just created in her palms. Her knees buckle underneath her as the ruthless shaking of the ground gains strength for perhaps the millionth time. She's not losing her balance; she is losing her mind!

Oh god, it's happening again.

May's eyes move from Skye, to the walls surrounding them, then back again to Skye. She hasn't seen anything like this before, yet it still seems dreadfully familiar. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she watches the scene in front of her unfold rather quickly.

Skye screams.

And just like that, it finally hits her. The Cavalry's eyes, as threatening as they come, widens in alarm. Her calm façade cracks.

_It can't be. It is not possible..._

The vibrations quickly splinter the tunnel walls, tearing them down simultaneously in all directions. If they could still hold the ceiling, in a couple of minutes, that would no longer be the case.

"Skye, what's wrong?" Coulson asks, looking around frantically. _How strong is this one now? Magnitude seven? Eight?_

The Director's question is met by a pained sound coming from the young hacker's throat. She has turned incredibly pale, her eyes out of focus. He takes a step towards her, but May stops him before he could reach her.

"No." May tells him.

Coulson narrows his eyes at his colleague. "But what—"

May shakes her head, and hands the unconscious Mack fully under Coulson's care. "Help him out of here. I got her."

She's not seriously asking him to leave Skye in a middle of a clear panic attack, is she? He's the one responsible for whatever horrors she witnessed inside that temple. The quest to find the alien city is not hers to begin with. He sent her to this path. She would not even be here if not for him. This is his fault. He can't just leave. "Melinda—"

"I'm her S.O.—I got her, Phil." She assures him, her voice surprisingly not devoid of emotion.

Once Coulson sees that awfully familiar look on May's face, he heaves a sigh and hesitantly agrees. But it's not without shooting Skye a look of concern. As much as he trusts May, he can't help but worry. Skye is, after all, still his newest—and by far his youngest—agent. "Alright, but you guys should hurry. I will wait for you aboveground."

When her two other colleagues had finally left, May takes a step towards Skye. It didn't surprise her that the younger agent's first instinct turns out to be scrambling as far away from her as she can, and then hugging her trembling knees close to her chest. She's shaking like a leaf, beyond terrified.

The Cavalry takes a calming breath, and kneels in front of her distressed agent. There's a giant rock above her head that is most likely to fall soon, but she barely gives it a glance. It's hardly her primary concern at the moment. What worries her is the thing happening with Skye. May is not by a long shot afraid of what she thinks is going on here, but her mind is reeling at the million possible ways this completely unexpected development could end up badly. It had before. In some distant past she'd rather not go back to.

There's no way in hell she'd let that happen, damn it. Not if she could do something about it. She can't be faced with that kind of call again. Not a second time.

Not with _her_.

So she calls in whatever bits and pieces of composure she still has left and mutters softly, "You should have told me you are this terrified of earthquakes, Agent Skye."


	5. The Aftermath

Skye wakes up a few hours later in a med pod of some sort, walls made up of two or three inches of what appears to be reinforced glass. Slowly, she sits up, blinks the haziness off her eyes. Everything's foggy inside her brain. She can barely remember how she got there. Her head is killing her. Was she injured? Shot?

_She could not possibly be shot again, can she?_

Then, right when she's about to start panicking, a familiar voice suddenly greets her from behind, startling her. It's Fitz.

"Hey," he says, his arms quickly advancing forward to keep her still before she fully jump right off the bed. Because she clearly is having a hard time maintaining an upright position, he gently pushes her back down onto the bed by her shoulders. "Take it easy," he tells her.

She follows absently, and while her brain is still halfway through plugging up holes in her memory, a certain realization unexpectedly hits her chest like a ton of bricks. She practically shoots up from the bed again, tries to sit, but fails miserably.

"Why am I here?" She thought she's going to die. She was supposed to die.

"We got you out in time." Fitz's response is not as helpful as he thought it would be. He could see it in Skye's face. "We're back on base."

"Got me out?" Skye mumbles weakly. She's still having trouble processing all this. She feels like she's being bombarded by a multitude of thoughts all at once, none of which remotely makes sense. How did they get her out? There wasn't supposed to be an out.

"Hunter says May dove to the tunnels to get you and Coulson." He tells her. "When she brought up, you were unconscious. Quite lucky, I'd say. Save for some minor wounds in your hands, you're practically unscathed."

Skye knows that Fitz only added that last part to make her feel more at awe at May's prowess in terms of saving people, but for some reason she could not explain, it only made her panic grow. She cannot stop the rapid beating of her heart. "Where—where is she?"

"May, you mean? She's out back, doing diagnostics on the bus." He replies gently. "We were flying too low when the earthquakes started. Who knows how much damage they've caused..."

"Damage?" Bile rises from her throat. Hearing that word made her skin crawl for some reason.

"The earthquake reached 8.6." Fitz said. "Shook the entire country and a couple of surrounding ones."

"8.6." She repeats, head swimming. Her heart is wound too tightly inside her chest, she could barely breathe.

"Yeah." He nods. "It was bad."

She deduces as much, but she still isn't able to stop her stomach from lurching painfully. The thought that she might have played a part in that cataclysmic event makes her want to hurl.

Indeed, Raina was instrumental in triggering the sequence of events that fucked up all of their lives. However, as much as she wants to deny it, deep inside, Skye knows that the woman does not own all the blame. Hell, saying that her insane tales about destiny and supernatural forces didn't elicit some interest inside her would be a big fat lie. Raina may be the one who brought the obelisk to the temple, but it is Skye who chose to not to leave. She was given a choice, and it is her who opted to stay. It is her who got curious. It is her who wanted see for herself what the fuss is all about.

Because as much as she tries to tell herself otherwise, like Raina, she, too, wanted answers.

Well, she got her damn answers, alright. It told her that she shouldn't have asked those stupid questions in the first place. Now, everything's so fucked up and a lot of people got hurt.

"How many—"

Fitz sighs, reading her mind. "I really don't know Skye."

"How about Trip? Did you—" There has been enough bad news already; maybe there's now room for some good ones. Maybe if they were able to save her, they could've saved him too.

The engineer looks away, but not before Skye saw a pained expression crossing his features. He does not need to say anything. The answer's clear on his face.

"No…" Skye wants him to tell her that everything that has happened was nothing but an awful dream. That Trip is still alive, safe, smiling.

Breathing.

He must have noticed the anxious look that had taken over his friend's face, so he calls her out on it. "It is no one's fault, you hear?" He still dons a grief-stricken look as he speaks. "No one."

Though she strongly disagrees on that regard, she purses her lip and nods. Tears are welling up in her eyes. "Is anybody else… how about Coulson? Mack?"

Fitz cuts her off. "You should rest first, yeah? Don't think about us. It's you we are worried about."

Instead of alleviating her worries, Fitz' vague response ends up amplifying them a thousandfold. She abruptly gets off her bed and pushes past him. If he would not tell her, then she would find it out herself. She needs to make sure that nobody else got hurt because of her carelessness. Because she was stupid enough to go in alone again.

When will she ever learn? Weren't the gunshot scars in her gut enough of a lesson already?

Her eyes dart everywhere, looking for an exit latch. There isn't any. All the doors are sealed shut, with the controls safely tucked in Fitz' hands. "Open the door, Fitz. I need to talk to Coulson."

He gives her a once over, and shakes his head. "Your heart is racing, your cheeks are paperwhite, and you look like your going to fall over any second. You are in no shape to be out of bed, let alone running around the base!"

Skye is beyond frantic now, shaking. Wait, is she the one shaking? "This…" She irately strips the sensors off her hands, and flings them to a corner. Her IV line follows soon after. "I don't need. Yes or no Fitz, is the team alright?"

"Not everyone in our team will be fine if you will not do as I say!" Fitz asserts as he stares her down, his voice firm. "You got the worst of it among all of us, and honestly, we are lucky we were able to get you out from there in one piece. So Skye, please, lie back down."

His outburst startles her but she stays in place. The pictures playing her head aren't all that pretty. She has to know. "I need to see for myself."

"You will." Fitz promises, his voice gaining a sympathetic tone. He looks her in the eye and gives her a gentle smile. "And t-they are all fine, believe me."

Fitz is not the kind of person who lies about things like that, and it knowing so is enough to temporary placate her. But she knows it wouldn't hold that long.

"Please, Skye." Fitz mutters softly. "If not for yourself, then do it for me. I'm—we—I'm wo-worried about you."

What she sees in his eyes is enough to make her concede. She lets out a heavy sigh. She stays on the bed, and takes a deep breath. "Fine." May's calming techniques prove to come pretty handy at a time like this. She closes her eyes.

It is too late when she realizes that doing so is nothing but a tremendous mistake.

* * *

**I hope this isn't too heavy for you. It'll all get better in time, I promise.**


	6. The Sacrifice

**One more week before Season 3! **

_**I kept wishing that the Asgardian that the episode 2 synopsis refers to is Thor or at least Fandral (a little far-fetched, i know, but hey, a girl can dream!)**_

* * *

The moment darkness takes over her vision; she's back underground once more, looking at the scared faces of Coulson and May. The earth is shaking so hard, she wonders why she's not falling flat on her face, and then she remembers…

"_You should have told me you are this terrified of earthquakes, Agent Skye." May tells her, a concerned look plastered all over her face. It grounds her._

"_I-I'm…" Skye stammers, eyes frantic. She's deathly pale. "Something's wrong."_

"_We will figure it out." May calm response is a sheer contrast to the intense crumbling noises which seem to punctuate her every word._

_Skye grits her teeth. Though she does not doubt May remarkable ability to cope with anything strange and unknown, she feels that this particular situation will be different. She feels something dark surging inside her, an ominous force begging to be set free. It wants to consume her—and it will consume her. It's only a matter of time._

"_Skye, come on, let's go."_

_May's apparent lack of sense of self preservation makes Skye want to yell at her, call her out on this unnecessary act of bravery. This is not the time for her to play hero, to try and save the day—to be the Cavalry. May should be saving herself instead. The place will not hold. Not for long. "The earthquakes…"_

"_I promise we will figure this out. But we have to get out of here first." _

_Skye bunches her trembling hand into a tight fist. What the fuck is going on with her? "I can't…stop."_

_Stop what exactly? The burning sensation under her skin? The trembling of her arms? The deafening noise inside her head?_

"_Yes you can." May tells her. It reminds Skye of the tone she always uses whenever they are in a training session, and while she's already too exhausted to continue, her S.O. still decides that she isn't. The look of confidence she gives Skye frustrates her to no end. "Yes you can!"_

_There is a transformation that's supposed to happen… a change._

"_It's…it's—"Skye's lips were trembling so much she could hardly speak. "I am causing this, am I?" She has no idea where on gods good earth did she take that conclusion from, yet it's the only explanation she could think of. No matter how she tries to tell herself that it's just all the absurd gibberish from both Raina and Cal getting into her head, she knows, deep down, that it was her. She's causing this. She's causing all of this. _

_This is your birthright…_

"_That's not important right now." May insists. If she's struggling to maintain her balance, she clearly has a good way of hiding it. "We can talk about this when we get back. First, you have to calm yourself". _

_Calm herself? She has to be kidding. She has to be fucking kidding. "I'm… trying—and I can't!"_

"_Then try harder! If you can cause this, then you can make it stop. Make this stop, Skye…"_

_Instead of calming her down, his words accomplish exactly the opposite. She starts to hyperventilate. This earthquake is strong enough to kill hundreds of people. Perhaps even thousands. Everyone's at risk. "I—I can't." Her words come out in panicked breaths._

_The scene unfolding in front of May's eyes is starting to get out of hand. The more panicked Skye becomes, the stronger the ground shakes underneath their feet. A frightening sense of déjà vu fills her heart. _

_Not again._

_Oh god please. Not again._

"_You have to leave me here! I need—"_

"_Focus, Skye." May instructs her, ignoring her student's plea. There's no way in hell she'd let this turn into another Bahrain. "You can stop this."_

"_I can't…" The ground grumbles. "I can't!"_

_This is perhaps the strongest earthquake she's ever experienced. The first of many? May sincerely hoped not. "Yes you can."_

"_I can't make it stop!" Skye grits out. Why can't her S.O. get that? She needs to leave her, and that needs to happen as soon as possible. Something bad is about to come, and she cannot let anybody else get hurt. "Leave!" _

"_Sure." May nods, then gestures to the ropes she brought with her. "You first."_

_The stubbornness of superior officer is the last thing she needed at a time like this. "Go!" Skye yells. "Before I blow this place and kill you too." _

"_No." May's voice is firm. If Skye is not going anywhere, then so is she. "Either stay here and we'll die together, or go with me aboveground and we both live. Your choice."_

_Her ultimatum ignites the panic in Skye's eyes. She does not seem like she's bluffing, and that leaves her with no other choice but to do as she asks. With much hesitation on her part, Skye tries pick herself up from the ground. It's not an easy task. She feels like there's a ton of concrete weighing on her back; her knees keep on buckling underneath her._

_She's a walking natural disaster and yet she could barely stand._

_There's got to be a joke in there somewhere._

_Thankfully, May forgoes calling her out on her apparent difficulty and hands her a piece of rope instead. Only her S.O. could think of sparing her dignity at a moment like this. "Let's go." _

_The place still would not stop shaking, and May could tell that Skye's still second guessing her every step. If Skye goes on like that, it wouldn't be long before they're both buried a hundred feet below see level. That's not exactly the way she wanted to go. _

_Eventually, she got tired of waiting._

_May grabs the ropes from Skye's hands, intending to expedite the process. However, unbeknownst to her, the younger agent has a plan of her own. _

_Without warning, Skye makes a swift turn that reverses their position and quickly fastens ropes onto May's belt. A strong tug sends the older agent shooting upwards, hurtling at warp speed back to level ground. May was moving too fast she hardly had the time to think, let alone make a countermove. She is already twenty feet above her agent before she lets out a harsh cry, "Skye!"_

"_I'm sorry." The younger agent murmurs. It had to be done. _

_The moment the whirring of the ropes stopped, Skye falls on her knees. Surely the bus is close by. It could get the team out of there and pull up just in time. That's the best she could do under the circumstances. She hopes it's enough to save everyone, including May._

_The mist from the obelisk is a curse—that much she could tell. And there's no way in hell she'll let anyone else suffer because of it. The deaths caused by that alien statue will end with her. She will not let that thing kill anyone else anymore._

_A shaky breath escapes from her lips. A stray tear falls from her eye._

_It is better this way. _

_The buzzing in her ear turns up, louder and louder, until it reaches a point when she can barely hear her own thoughts. She grabs her hair and breathes a strangled sound. Her insides are burning yet she feels no physical pain. Is this her end? Is this how she's going to die?_

_She lets out a loud scream, and a cacophony of roaring rocks is the answer she gets in return. The ground shook some more. _

_The interior of the tunnels becomes wider and wider as miniature explosions slowly pulverize its walls. The only lights she sees are those distant rays from the opening she just sent May hurtling into, and it would not take long before they will be gone as well. _

_It is so dark she can barely see her hands right in front of her eyes. If she could only see them, she'd be absolutely horrified of how profusely they are bleeding from where her nails had dug themselves into. _

_A loud blast from above fills her ears, but she refuses to look up. She is by no means prepared to die, and if she will be dead soon, she'd rather not stand and watch it happen. _

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…_

_She could feel the darkness flowing inside her veins, gradually consuming her from the inside. This time, she lets it. There's no point in fighting it. There's no point anymore._

_She closes her eyes. Gives in to it all._

_The world splinters._

* * *

**Thank you for reading!**


	7. The Reassurance

**A/N: Here are two new chapters to make up for my extended absence.**

* * *

"Hey, Skye! Skye!" Fitz's anxious repetition of her name pulls her out of her reverie. He's tapping her shoulder. Skye almost sighs in relief when she realizes that it is him that causes all the shaking, not her.

Well, not this time.

"Sorry." Skye musters a smile, but all she could give is a fake one. That has to make do. "Still a little banged up, I guess."

He glances at the frozen values in her cardiac monitor and purses his lip. The heart rate is way beyond normal. Should he be nervous? Does she need adenosine? Maybe he should be calling Jemma. "Your baseline heart rate was at about two hundred you threw all the sensors away. I'd call that a little more than just banged up." Fitz might have not noticed it yet, but his stutters are becoming lesser and lesser.

"I feel fine, Fitz." She reassures him.

"Good luck getting Jemma to buy that. It's bloody two hundred bpms!" He may not be a medical doctor, but even he could tell that there is something wrong with Skye's heart. And perhaps not just her heart. Her biological data on almost all aspects has gone completely haywire. "What happened to you down there, Skye?"

She does not reply, but the slight tensing of her jaw does not completely go past him. He goes on a different route, "Did you see what happened to Raina?" Fitz hopes that Skye would see his questioning as a product of scientific curiosity rather than an attempt to probe what's bothering her. He may not be as adept in detecting lies as other more experienced agents, but that doesn't mean he couldn't tell when his friend his hiding something from him. The last thing this team needs is more secrets. "Coulson told me how her face changed. That she has thorns now."

Skye knows he only asks that in an attempt to shift the focus of conversation from her, and she was almost thankful for it.

Almost.

"I didn't see her." That's not much of a lie. She didn't actually see her change appearance. "The last time I saw her was before she—"

Before she was encased in some sort of cocoon…

_Oh god._

It's just the same cocoon that ate her up.

"Before she what?" He asks, genuinely curious.

"Fitz." May interrupts him before he could probe Skye with some more questions about San Juan. As always, her timing is impeccable. "I think Simmons needs your help with something upstairs."

"Yeah?" He answers half-heartedly, still not tearing his gaze from Skye.

"Fitz." May's tone sounds more like a warning this time.

"I'm going. I'm going." The hesitation on his face was too clear not to be noticed. He does not want to leave just yet. Something indeed seems off with his friend. He gives her one last look, "we'll talk later, yeah?"

Skye swallows and vaguely nods. She's not looking forward to that.

The moment Fitz disappears from the door, Skye surreptitiously lets out a nervous breath. And it was stupid of her to think that May wouldn't notice.

"How are you feeling?" May asks her.

That isn't really a question Skye felt like answering, but since it is May who is asking, evasion wouldn't actually do her any good.

She ponders for the right words to say. Honestly, there is yet a word to describe what she's going through right now. She could think of a number of curses, but she's fairly certain her S.O. wouldn't be too appreciative in hearing any one of them.

"Skye?"

Just to put an end to her relentless questioning, she conjures what she thinks should be the proper answer to such question and replies, "I feel like a whole cave descended on top of me." It's a lie. Her hands sting, sure, but that's it. She couldn't think of another part of her body that's in pain. The only other thing that makes her feel bad is the fact that she feels good. She feels strangely good.

If May notices her lame attempts at deception, she does not call her out on it. "What do you remember?"

Skye takes a calming breath as she fought the tears that are threatening to fall from her eyes. "Not much, really." Again, another lie.

What does she remember? Every single fucking thing, of course. Down to the tiniest, and most depressing detail. Why? Because she is that great. She is so fucking great.

May sighs at her agent's refusal to look at her. "You remember, don't you?"

Even though she didn't speak, May could see Skye's pain as clear as day. And if she does not let that out, it would consume her. She should know. She'd been there. "You can tell me."

"You saw what I did." Skye knows that it would not take long before May gets tired of her. Before she tells her that she's not a good fit after all. Things always turn from bad to worse whenever she's involved. If her pre-walking natural disaster self couldn't fit in before, then there's no way her post freak show version could do it now. It'd be much easier to let her go. The Brodys would surely agree.

It's like that crystal decanter all over again.

May could tell by the look of Skye's face that she does not want to tell her anything. That she'd rather keep things buried inside, and forget that they exist. Her rookie is downright scared right now, and she has a pretty good idea why. It just fuels her determination not to let her continue thinking that way. "I would not leave you, you know that right?"

Her S.O.'s words seem to open a whole dam of emotions which Skye was so hell bent on locking away. But Skye won't be Skye if she's not stubborn. She still refuses to glance at her.

"I'm not them, Skye." May reassures her protégé. "No matter what happens from this point on, I would never leave you."

_Yes you will. Eventually. Everybody does._

"We will get through this, Skye. I won't turn my back." May utters firmly. Her fierce tone is enough to force Skye to look at her. There's a strong possibility that it's all but a trick of light, but Skye could've sworn that her S.O.'s eyes momentarily turns a tad shinier. The Cavalry reaches for her shoulder. "Not this time. And especially not with you."

Even when fighting back tears, Skye could tell there's more meaning behind those words. History. She may never know what they are, but the fact that May feels the need to bring those painful memories up to make her feel better just proves how crappy her situation really is.

"I should've known that I'm freak show disaster waiting to happen. I mean, all the clues were there." Skye tells her, a bitter chuckle escaping her lips. "I should've known."

"Yeah. But I taught that disaster how to fire an automatic. That ought to count for something."

Skye lets out a strangled laugh. May telling her about guns should be the least touching thing she could've possibly done, but for some weird reason it worked. Skye laughed and laughed until her sides begin to hurt; she laughed until she could laugh no more.

Little by little, each of her chuckles turns to something else entirely. Her barriers break; her face crumples. A quiet tear leaves her eyes, then another, and another. Before she knows it, she's already weeping unrestrainedly on her mentor's arms. She grabs a handful of May's leather jacket, clinging to it like a lifeline. She's mourning something she'd never thought she'd ever lose, never even considered losing. "What's gonna happen to me?"

May's embrace tightens protectively against her protégé. Pain sears into her chest while she tries to rake her mind for something to say that would make things better. Something that would make it all go away. Because as much as she is scared to admit, encased in her arms is one of the most important people in her life right now. The only person who had showed her, time and time again, how it is to have a daughter. She may have lost her chance to have one of her own, but Skye has always been there to fill the void she knew she would always have. She wiggled her way inside her heart and made a home for herself without even trying, and no matter how May tried to push her away, she was still there. She refused to leave.

Simmons was right. No amount of stubbornness in the world could match Skye's when she puts her mind into it.

Maybe now's the time to return the favor.

"I'm here, Skye. I would never let anything happen to you, I promise." May mumbles softly to her ear, a gentle caress to the storm that rages inside the young agent's anxious heart. She could sense slight tremors on the ground where she stands, but she pretends not to notice. "I will always be here."

"I don't want to hurt you."

The older woman shakes her head, "That's not going to happen."

Skye insists. "I could."

"But you won't." May says quietly. "We'll get through this, I promise."

"I don't want it to be real." Skye's voice quivers. How is she supposed to end the earthquakes when she could hardly stop her own self from trembling? "Please tell me it's not real…"

May tightens her arms around her. She wants to say yes, she really does, but that would be an outright lie.

The shaking of the earth seems to tell her as much.


	8. The Change

On the other side of the base, Coulson stands in front of his team. It had barely been two days since Puerto Rico, but he could already feel the gaping hole one particular person had left behind. He was a good agent. He didn't deserve to die.

"The obelisk triggered a massive earthquake," he begins, his face grim. "We do not have anything yet on the exact number of casualties yet, but one thing we know for sure; we suffered a terrible loss. Trip, one of our own, he died a hero."

He hears someone sniff in a corner, and does his best not to look at its source. The team needs a sturdy rock to lean on right now. He could not afford to crumble. He straightens his back and inwardly sighs. "As you may all know, Whitehall, as well as a large number of Hydra agents, had been eliminated by our team in San Juan."

"Hydra may have lost a head, but there are many others out there, waiting to ascend in his place." He says. "We cannot afford to wait for that to happen. If we are going to make our move, we have to make it now."

* * *

The next visitor Skye gets is not exactly who she's expecting. She thought it would be Coulson, or at least Jemma. But she guesses she and her visitor might have something common now, with the two of them having experienced something downright inexplicable down that temple. She sits up straighter on her bed. "Hey."

"How is it going down here?" Mack asks her, looking around her little chamber in the basement.

Skye tries her best not to picture him like when she last saw him—with eyes nothing but terrifying pools of liquid gloom. She fights off a shiver. "I feel like my van is bigger than this room."

He scans her temporary glass encasement. It's not small at all, but he gets what she means. "Me, I got off easy. They cleared me an hour ago."

She is quite touched that Mack decides to visit her so soon after he himself has been taken off of quarantine. They haven't really had the chance to interact much in the past, despite working under the same roof for months.

"Well, you didn't exactly get the same alien spray tan service I had." She has not told that to anyone—not even to her S.O.—but it somewhat felt easier telling Mack. Maybe their shared experience connects them in some way now.

His eyebrows furrow at her odd choice of words. "Kind of hard to top that one, but I did fall a hundred feet without dying."

She finds his attempts to make light of the situation almost comforting. She smiles. "Impressive. So why aren't you moping? You should be moping."

He chuckles. "Agent May told me you already got that covered."

Ah, so May sent him to talk to her. She folds her arms across her chest. She should've seen that one coming. "I never figured her to be this chatty."

"Hey, don't look at me." He waves his hands at her. "You know her better than I do. I stopped trying to understand her my first day in. She didn't like me that much."

"Yeah." She replies. "But you did call her The Cavalry on your first day."

"Clearly not my brightest moment." He shrugs. "How was I supposed to know she hates being called that?"

Skye heaves a small sigh. "I don't think people should to talk to her on their first day. At all"

An awkward silence fills the room until he finally chooses to speak again. He tilts his head. "Do you know why they aren't clearing you yet?"

She shrugs. "The only thing they told me is that my vitals are not stable, and that I'm not radioactive—which is a good thing, I guess." She says with a wry smile. "Because of the vitals part, Simmons won't let me out just yet. She told me I'm technically not in quarantine though, so yay!"

"Tough break." Mack comments. Then his face claims a more serious shade. "Um, Skye, Can I ask you something?"

She considers it for a nanosecond. It is not as if she has something else to do. "Shoot."

"In there…" Mack falters, "did you—feel um, did you lose control too?"

Her insides twist tightly. And painfully.

Control is a big word, and she doesn't think it's the only thing she had lost from that place. Jemma told her earlier that Mack somehow had been controlled by the alien city, much like zombie ants—whatever that means.

Skye, on the other hand, doesn't think she turned out as lucky.

He takes her silence as a yes.

"So you know what it is like?" Mack asks her. His eyes briefly show her the fear that brews underneath his smile, but is enough for her to commit it to memory. It offers her a front row seat view of the residual terror the alien city had left lingering inside him. "To see yourself do something bad, yet you could not stop it?"

"In a manner of speaking." The words 'quarantine' and 'danger' written on the walls loom in front of her, and she almost laughed at how fitting they sounded now, when she comes to think of it. She doesn't think Simmons' repeated assurances about her not being in quarantine will make the experience a less bitter pill to swallow. "Maybe I deserve to be in this place after all."

"Hey, don't say that." He admonishes.

"Me being stuck here with hundreds of sensors in my head just emphasizes how dim-witted I must've been, following Raina down there all by myself." She said irately. Maybe along with earthquake powers or whatever that is she has now, the temple also strapped a self-imploding anger bomb to her chest. It certainly feels like it. "Good thing none of these sensors measure stupidity. I'd probably be ringing off the charts if that's the case."

"See, you really got the moping all covered." A small spark gets reignited in Mack's eyes. He grins. "You'll get out here soon. It's not as if you tried to kill half of your team…and your boss. I think I threw Coulson across the room twice."

She cringes at that. She feels some of her sullenness dissipate. "Not the best career move."

"Yeah." He replies. "I will never get under lola's hood now."

Some unladylike snort escapes from Skye's lips.

He gives her a grin. "That sounded _way_ better inside my head."

"Don't worry. Your secret is safe with me." Skye promises. "If Coulson heard you though, he'd probably park Lola as far away from you as possible. I'm thinking Asgard."

It's Mack's turn to cringe. "I'm not putting that past him."

She shifts on her seat tentatively as another bout of silence takes over.

"I remember all of it." Mack admits, his face suddenly taking a dourer mood. "I remember seeing you too, down there."

"Yeah?" She doesn't think she needs to be reminded of those things again, yet at the same time, she feels like she has to listen in. At least for Mack's sake. He has to tell someone.

"You need to be there." He searches her for any signs that she understands what he meant, but all he could see is the wounded expression on her face. "It tells me to let you go inside. To your destiny—whatever that is. Anyone who gets in the way has to be stopped. I just don't know why."

She scoffs. "Destiny, huh?"

"Yeah." Mack scratches his chin, realizing how absurd his thoughts had been. "It's pretty messed up."

"I must've done some bad shit in my past life because all that destiny did was wrap me in some alien cocoon while—"

His eyebrows scrunch up at that. "Alien cocoon?"

Skye's eyes darts away. She shrugs. "I dunno. Raina was there with me, the obelisk flew out of her hand, and then…"

"Then what?"

Ah hell, she's bound to tell someone eventually. It might as well be him. "This thing was all over me. At first, I thought I turned to stone, but I didn't."

Though half of Skye's story is downright confounding, Mack tries his best not to look confused. He does not want to add more fear into her eyes. She's scared enough as it is. He waits for her to speak.

"My insides were burning. I wanted to move, to scream—" She closes her eyes and tries to gather as much strength she could. "I saw everything. Trip kicked the obelisk, then he…"

Mack nods, silently telling Skye that she does not have to say those words anymore. He was already briefed about what happened to Trip.

"I felt wrong. I dunno…" Skye lets out a heavy breath, and stares desperately at the ceiling. "One moment I was there, the next thing I knew—"

"You're not in control."

Psycho father, obsessed traitorous former teammate, possible alien-like abilities—what a messed up life she has. "More than that, Mack. I felt different."

He scans her face carefully. The constant look of terror in her face is kind of out of character for her, but that's as far as he can go. She appears basically same to him. The furrows between his brows deepen. "Different how?"

She shakes her head. Changes her mind. "Forget it. I'm overreacting, I guess."

That is not how Mack would put it, but he feigns a nod of understanding anyway. He's now starting to get what May means when she told him that Skye's in a very delicate condition. Her body language tells him as much. Whatever she saw down there, it really scared the hell out of her. "Well, I am just glad it's all over now. We're both okay, I guess that's what's important."

Skye, for some reason, could not bring herself to agree with him.

* * *

_**Have you seen the season 3 opener? I only have one word to describe it: IAIN.**_


	9. The Nightmare

**All typos and mistakes are mine (in case you still haven't noticed... i'm quite prone to such things). Have you seen the third episode of season 3? I'm really starting to ship Static Quake. The relationship seems, i don't know, healthier than Skye's (er, Daisy's previous) ones. So far, i mean. **

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Sleep is exceptionally hard to get when your mind is filled with images that could guarantee nightmares worthy of horror movies. However, given how much the last couple of days had taken a toll on Skye's body, she eventually surrenders. She dozes off fitfully, twisting and turning underneath the covers.

Then, her dreams start.

And no, they're not the good ones.

She opens her eyes to a dark place. Whether it is dawn or sundown, she could not tell. Everything is filled with thick, whitish fog. She's standing in the middle of a building lobby. The security is too tight in there. Everyone gets inspected; every bag is turned inside out. Metal detectors and x-ray scanners are strewn all around the place.

The place looks vaguely familiar yet she's sure she hasn't been there before.

There are people in suits, walking, passing by her. No one meets each other's eyes. No one notices her. No one is weirded out that she is standing there in the first place. She feels like it's a good thing.

Her vision shifts. She is now looking at her hands. She's wearing a pair of black gloves long enough to cover up to her elbows. No, they're not really gloves. Something between an armor and a glove. It is snug, but oddly, it is quite comfortable. What is it made of? Titanium?

"Skye!"

Someone screams her name, and suddenly finds herself pulled to a corner. How did he manage to sneak up on her? His eyes are frantic, his face disheveled. He hasn't been sleeping, she could tell that much. But who is he?

"Come back." He tells her again, almost begging. Why is he begging her? Come back to where? He is not making any sense.

"Please don't do this."

She stares at him. He doesn't look familiar but he seems to know her. She wonders why.

His attention moves to a certain spot to her right. He looks strangely scared of what he sees. Curious, she follows suit, giving whatever it is a quick glance. What could possibly get him so scared—

"No, don't look!" The man screams. It's too late. She already saw it.

An ancient artifact covered in weird carvings is inside a highly protected glass case. Red laser beams are scattered everywhere.

The artifact is long and silver, with such strange carvings. She could not explain why, but it calling to her, beckoning her to come closer. It wants to be seized—to be held. It is waiting for her. It has been waiting for her for so long.

She wants—no—she _needs_ to get it.

"No!" A voice screams inside her head. Or is it the man beside her? She couldn't say. "No, Skye, please!"

She blinks. The relic is now in her hands. She scans the place. Glass shards are strewn everywhere. People around her are running away.

_What's wrong? What happened?_

It's only then when she notices the shaking. Everyone is unsteady on their feet as they move quickly out of the building. Fixtures are ramming against each other. Tables slide across the floor, chairs fall on their backs. She couldn't feel the ground tilting, but she could see it happen.

People in suits are scrambling away, running as fast as they could to safety. But as it appears, nowhere is safe. One by one, the surrounding structures disintegrate.

People started getting hurt, screaming for help. Even if she couldn't hear their voices she could see in their eyes every single question that is lodged in their throats.

_Why are you doing this to us?_

_Why?_

_Of all people, why you?_

She's suddenly outside the building. She looks at the artifact on her hands. Its carvings are glowing bright orange.

The ground groans in agonizing pain. She could feel it crying underneath her feet. Oddly, the sensation exhilarates her.

Unexpectedly, a huge boulder drops in front of her, making her jump. The place is in total chaos, and the accumulation of dust is clearly not helping. She coughs, blinks through the fog. There is something shiny on whatever it was that fell before her. What is it, a symbol? A sign of—

And then she sees it. On a slab of stone she finds a certain logo she knows by heart. Hell, she even promised complete allegiance to it at one point in her life.

Oh no. Oh no, it's—

She shoots a panicked glance at her hands. They're bleeding, dried blood caking each of her fingertips. Her palms are full of filth.

The artifact is glowing so brightly in her grasp. And now, as she gives it a much closer look, she realizes that she'd seen it before, and holding it, keeping it clasped in her hands is so, so wrong.

In panic, she lets it fall harshly from her grasps. She needs to get away from it. She needs to get away from everyone now.

Things start to move in slow motion as she watched the staff go farther and farther away from her, until eventually, the staff meets the ground with a resounding thud. It sends loud echoes all throughout the city. The sound it creates is utterly deafening.

_You did this,_ a voice in her head tells her. _This is all you._

She looks up to the wreckage, to the destruction, before her. It is only when comprehension finally sinks in.

It wasn't just a random building she annihilated.

It's the Triskelion.

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**Hey, don't react yet. I've seen the Winter Soldier. Just read the next chapter. ****Btw, who else noticed that Daisy tends to be attracted to people who used to train/teach her [Miles-hacking, Ward-combat, Lincoln-powers thingy]?**


	10. The Truth

**Just to clarify, since this story is already halfway done (as in 35000 words done), my present shipping preferences would not be affecting it in any way.**

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Unbeknownst to Skye, all that shaking is not confined in her head. The room she's in is trembling as well. Contents of shelves move from side to side unsteadily, bottles crashing and exploding to a thousand pieces.

Hunter is just passing through the door leading to Skye's glass cell when he started sensing the quakes. At first, he blames lack of sleep—that plus the three bottles of beer he _accidentally_ finished all by himself a couple of hours ago. But that was before he heard a muffled cry coming from inside the room.

His head turns towards the sound. "Huh."

Another cry bursts out.

Curious, and admittedly, a little worried, he knocks at the door gently. There's nobody in there but Skye. It's got to be her. "Are you okay in there, love?"

He isn't entirely surprised not to get an answer in return. Unless she is torturing somebody else in there (unlikely), he deduces that what he hears from inside is a product of a very horrible nightmare or something. He opens the door slowly and walks in. "Skye?"

The sight that welcomes him is way beyond what he's expecting. He didn't find a trembling girl, lost in the depths of a bloody nightmare. No, it's not even close.

His eyes train to the flickering lights hanging above him. They sway back and forth, their unforgiving movements making him slightly dizzy. The noisy protests of the room surely aren't helping.

"Bloody hell."

The shaking continues, growing stronger and stronger the more time he spends gaping at the room and doing nothing. He instinctively holds on to the wall for stability.

Skye groans. She's not shaking like the rest of them. In fact, she lies so still, Hunter's beginning to doubt that they are in the same room. She's clutching her covers for dear life.

An enormous shelf falling dangerously close to Skye's legs is all the motivation he needs to get moving. He runs to her as fast as he can. It takes him ten nerve-wracking seconds and a thwarted chance of sustaining a major head trauma to figure out the controls of the glass door. The swooshing sound of it finally sliding open sounded a tad sweeter than it should be. He walks right in and heads straight to her cot.

"Wake up." He nudges the hacker's shoulders none too gently. Life or death situations tend to make people forget about bedside manners. He hopes his (temporary) colleague would understand. "Hey, Skye, wake up!"

Without warning, one of the light bulbs above him explodes to bits. He uses his body to cover her from all the glass shards. Bloody hell fifty times over! "Skye, come on!" He lightly slaps her in the face. "Wake up before—"

It is then when Skye finally gasps awake, cutting him off. Seeing Hunter in her room—in front of her face—confuses her like hell, but not as much as watching the entire room behind him swing madly like a ship in a raging storm.

"'Bout time you wake up little lady." Is all the greeting Skye gets from him. He helps her up while beakers keep on falling from both their sides—an excellent reminder that although he has already managed to reach point A to point B without breaking a single bone, the entire place is still shaking. This means that his limbs (and hers) aren't completely out of the woods just yet. "We should get outta here." He tilts his head towards the fallen shelf. "You almost lost a leg there."

_Did that just happen?_ She just destroyed a huge building in her dream. The same building, which, as far as she could remember, had already been destroyed by a helicarrier the same day Hydra came out of the shadows?

_What the hell was that about?_

"Hey, sweetheart?" Hunter's annoyed tone drags her back to the present. "Can you even bloody hear me?"

She does not answer, but her bandaged hands starts to tremble so she pockets them quickly, out of his sight. The buzzing inside her ears returns, though it's not as loud now as it was back in the temple.

The former mercenary opens the door for her, his hold firm on her upper arm as he attempts to pull her along with him and towards safety. But, as he now realizes, he might as well be dragging a corpse because she doesn't seem interested to move at all. He senses not even a single bloody hint of cooperation coming from her. She's far too busy glaring at the floor, and truthfully, he doesn't really have the time or the patience to ask her why.

"Now is not the time to freeze up and wait for a fucking carriage, Skye! What the hell are you waiting for?" Disbelief drips in his every word as his attempts to physically drag her out the room is met by a firm resistance from her. Short of dragging her by her hair, kicking and screaming, he couldn't think of anything else to do to convince his colleague to snap out of whatever trance she's stuck in. She just refuses to budge.

"Skye, come on!"

He's starting to consider hauling her up his shoulders like a caveman, damn being a gentleman to hell. He pulls her again towards him—nothing. She didn't even seem like he felt it. She's simply stands there, stiff as a board, glaring at the fine cracks that are slowly forming underneath their feet.

There's a very strong fighting chance that they will be buried beneath at least half a ton of ceiling fixtures and concrete any minute now, and Hunter is running out of choices. So, with a loud curse that would probably make even the most foul-mouthed sailor cringe, he grabs Skye by the shoulders and tries as much as he could to calmly inform her of what he's about to do. "Okay, Skye, I'm gonna carry you out. No funny business, I pro—"

A little explosion above their heads steals Hunter's attention. He is too busy figuring out how a light fixture chooses to autodestruct the exact moment Skye chooses to take a deep harsh breath to notice that her eyes finally snap back to the land of the living.

She almost falls on her ass at what she's seeing. Things are getting _way _out of hand. "Oh god, Hunter, I—"

"Come on!" He did not live this long just to die inside a man-sized blender.

She's shaking so much. Even if she grits her teeth and shuts her eyes, she's still shaking so much. She's running out of choices. The force inside her is building up for a huge one. She could feel it. "Do you have an ICER?" She asks frantically.

"What?" His colleague is not making the slightest sense, but he chooses to answer her anyway. "Of course I have an ICER. You have an ICER. At least, I think you had one before—"

With eyes scared shitless, she cuts him off. She doesn't have much time. "Shoot me!"

Hunter gapes at her. Was she hit in the head by a boulder back in Puerto Rico? "Why on earth would I do that?"

"I don't have time to explain, damn it. I can't—god—I can't hold it anymore!" She grits out, teeth gnashed together so tight. She tries to calm her mind, to urge the noises stop, but the only thing it accomplishes is to make her more breathless than she was before. Her heart beats wildly inside her chest as she hopelessly watched the world crumble all around her. "Just do it please!"

Hunter is still debating whether he should just Skye's (very questionable) judgment when May abruptly barges in to the room. "Skye!"

Seeing her S.O. entering the room increases the dread in Skye's eyes a thousand fold. Eyes wild and panicky, she looks back at Hunter and pleadingly screams, "Shoot me now!"

"No!" May yells just as a soft whizzing sound suddenly comes slicing into the room. A hard thud immediately follows.

The shaking stops.

May's steely façade drops. "Skye!"

Mouth wide, Hunter moves his eyes from the smoking ICER on his hands, to the paralyzed agent in front of him. He drops the gun as if it just burned him. Did he just—

_Bloody hell._

He shot Skye.

He fucking shot her!

What the hell was he thinking?

On cue, May's fist comes at warp speed towards his face. The former mercenary, unfortunately, is too dumbfounded at the time to dodge it.

"Ow!" He yelps the moment The Cavalry's steel fist reaches his jaw, sending him face first onto tiled floor. He is already well aware of how mean a punch May could throw, he's heard the rumors. But after having such a first hand experience made him realize that the rumors, as bloodcurdling they were, did not do her enough justice. Being shot by a fifty caliber round felt more like a caress from a baby compared to the Cavalry's fist. A little stronger and she could've easily broken his jaw.

"Oh god, Skye, no." May says in a very worried tone that freaks Hunter out. It freaks him out more than the possibility that the female agent had just damaged his very handsome face for good.

May gingerly picks Skye up from the ground. She checks her pulse and cradles her face. The young hacker is unconscious, but alive.

_It's an ICER. The gun was an ICER. Thank god._

Hunter stares at the two women in front of him. Save for the residual swaying of the lights, the room has turned completely still. He tries putting two and two together, however, no matter how he attempts to move the facts around, the answers that comes to his head still isn't making the slightest sense. He stands up, and reaches for the door. "I will get Simmons—"

"Don't." May's terrifyingly calm voice stops him dead on his tracks.

"But Skye needs—"_ Skye needs what exactly?_ Hell, whatever it is, he doesn't think two field operatives armed with nothing but guns and knives would be the smartest choice. "Simmons—"

May cuts him off again. Her voice can be completely menacing when she puts her mind to it. "No, you are not going anywhere, or the next bullet that will echo inside this room will end up in your face."

His eyes widens at that. Her words sounded more like a promise than a threat. He feels like he needs to apologize, but he holds it back instead. There is still the glaring fact in front of them that there is an unconscious person lying on the ground in dire need of medical help. "Simmons can help with, er…I don't bloody know! But she can do something!"

A conflicted look briefly passes through May's face. It doesn't suit her. "It's Skye."

_Huh?_ "Yeah, clearly it's Skye. You are holding her right now, and she needs someone other than us to help her!"

May sighs. "Skye is making those earthquakes, Hunter."

Hunter is still wondering why May seems to be missing the urgency of the situation, and their obvious necessity to have someone with much more medical experience in the room when her words finally sink in._ Skye's making the— _

His jaw falls slack. _Wait,_ _Skye? As in our Skye, Skye?_

He completely forgets what he's about to say. In fact, it takes him a good half minute before he could formulate something which could be remotely considered a response. "Oh."

"That information does not leave this room, understood?" May's voice is stern, almost threatening, but still utterly calm. Hunter wonders how the hell she manages to do that. Her face, however, that is another story altogether.

The absence of neutrality in the Cavalry's face, on a normal day, is already enough to make his insides churn… but seeing panic in her eyes—that's another terrifying matter entirely. That he does not see so often. Hell, come to think of it, he could not remember any other time when he has seen it. Not even when Hydra was about to shoot their plane off the sky.

"The quake in Puerto Rico… was it um, her?" _Please say no. Please say no._

The tension in May's posture is all the answer he needed.

"Damn." He mutters. That earthquake shook almost half the continent.

"This is the first time since then." May replies curtly. Her tone was blatantly accusatory. "What did you do to her?"

"Me?" He asks, taking a more defensive stance. "I didn't—"

"What did you do?"

"Nothing!" Hunter fiercely shakes his head, waving his hands in front of him as if to manually drive all suspicion away. "It was already shaking when I got here. I'm the innocent bystander here who's merely trying to help."

She scoffs at that. "Help?"

"Yes!" Hunter insists. "She was having a nightmare, and everything in the room was exploding to tiny bits and pieces, so I tried to wake her."

"A nightmare." May repeats.

"Yes, a nightmare. People tend to have that sometimes, you know?" Hunter says. "It was a pretty bad one, as it seemed. Whatever it was about, it got her so terrified. Is she really making those quakes?"

May's reaction is a non reaction. She brushes the stray hair from Skye's face and grits her teeth before finally turning to look at Hunter. She hopes she wouldn't regret this decision. "Close the door."

And then she tells him everything.

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**Reviews don't take much time. I'd be happy to hear from you**.


	11. The Decision

**There's some sort of foreshadowing hidden somewhere in this chapter. Brownie points for those who could guess what it is. (And no, the said foreshadowing is not the one connected to the prologue)**

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For the second time that day, it is Hunter's face that Skye sees the moment she opens her eyes. Whether he's smiling or not, she couldn't say. Her eyes are too blurry to tell the difference.

"There you are." He greets her rather cheerfully. "Are you okay now, love? Can you sit?"

She tries to get up, but her arms feel like jell-o. "Ugh…" She returns to a supine position and blinks the drowsiness off her eyes. Her head is pounding like a bass drum. "Probably not."

"I would apologize, but technically speaking, you asked for it."

If there's anyone in that room who needs to seek forgiveness, it isn't him. She wouldn't lie; being shot by an ICER feels like shit, and no amount of past encounters with the stuff will ever prove to be helpful. But it is not like there are other available options at the time. He did exactly what has to be done, and for that she is grateful. "Is—is everyone okay?"

"I barely felt the shaking really." He lies. "No one's hurt."

She releases a relieved breath.

He smirks at the almost childish expression which has taken over her face. If not for the raging hurricane of emotions he spots on her eyes, he would think she's genuinely cheered up by his news. "But I'd appreciate a little warning next time you try rocking the house."

Hunter blatantly ignores the obvious tensing of her shoulders at his remark.

Her eyes are starting to clear up, but the wreckage that welcomes her makes her wish they aren't. "I'm guessing May already told you."

"The entire room did, actually." He shrugs. "It was much more forthcoming, not to mention, less violent than our dear Agent May here, but I guess that that is to be expected. Not much of a talker, that one."

Skye snorts, but abruptly stops when she notices Hunter's bleeding lip. "Wait… you're bleeding! Did I hurt you?"

"Eh?" He touches his lip. There is indeed a small cut there with some minimal bleeding. "This one's not your fault. Though still a well deserved injury, I suppose."

Skye briefly wonders what he meant, and she has a pretty good hunch that her S.O. has something to do with it, but chooses to drop the subject for now. She could only hope that he's not lying about the real cause of his injury in an attempt to not make her feel bad. "Thank you." She tells him quietly. "For stopping it."

"Don't mention it." He shoots her a carefree grin. "But hey, I shot you. Granted, it's not an actual gun, but I'm not exactly holding my breath for any form of gratitude after that."

"Still." Skye says, smiling back. "Thanks."

"Agent May stepped out for a while. She'll be back later. Said she has to talk to you about something." He says. "I have no clue as to what that may be, but she sure looks quite pissed."

A ghost of a smile crawls on Hunter's face as he watched Skye's expression turn from grateful, to curious, to utterly terrified in two short seconds, and it took him some time before he found his speaking voice again. He could not remember a time when he felt this strange talking to Skye. But then again, he did just find out that his friend and colleague is capable of leveling mountains in her sleep.

"And here I thought this day could not get any worse." She half-heartedly chuckles.

"Is it an emotional thing? The earthquakes, I mean?" The question has already left his mouth the moment Hunter realized that it is quite insensitive of him to ask her about it so soon. The way blood drained from her face just proves it.

"I'd rather not talk about it."

"Okay, fair enough." He said carefully. He feels like he's treading on very thin ice. "But would it be weird to ask you if you are alright?"

Skye feels oddly comforted by his rare show of concern, as awkward as his delivery has been. However, his question is not something she could answer just yet. With her luck, maybe not for a long time. "Tell you what—I'll let you know when I know."

Hunter tilts his head. He watches her cautiously as he wracks his brain for something that could take her mind off the recent events. Experience tells him that humor is the best way to do that. "Just out of curiosity, can you, for example, throw objects away with your mind?"

Skye stares at Hunter as if he'd grown a second head. The distorted kind of second head. Is he seriously asking her that? She snorts. Of course he is. He is Lance Hunter after all. "I don't think I can."

"Is that hesitation I sense in your tone, love?" Hunter notes victoriously. "That does not mean you can't. It just means you don't know yet."

Yeah, and she'd rather not know. But she doesn't tell him that. She zips her mouth and stares silently at the wreckage in front of her instead. Did she really do all that?

Hunter can sense a pity party when he sees one. The melancholy is warranted, he'd give her that—since not even a single thing in the room was in place. Hell, given the intensity of the most recent quake, it wouldn't be much of a jump to say that not even the place itself was in place. But that doesn't change the fact that whenever he gets the chance to witness one of those wretched interludes on anyone, he bends over backwards to tear them down. He follows her eyes. "I wouldn't hire you to redesign my house, that's for sure."

"I wouldn't invite _me_ in my house!" She blurts out angrily, not able to keep her frustrations bottled up inside her anymore. She knows he's just trying to help. To lighten up the mood. But she couldn't seem to stop her rage from pouring out. "Look around, Hunter. I did all that. I destroy everything around me!"

"Unladylike angst—I dig it." He clucks his tongue. "But aren't you forgetting something?"

She searches deep inside her for some semblance of patience she has left and breathes in slowly. "What?"

"I was around you." He mutters, his voice gaining a more serious tone. "Do I look like I've crumbled into tiny bits and pieces?"

"It's not—"

"Tread carefully, love. I may not look like it, but I am a sensitive guy."

The sound that leaves her mouth is something between a snort and a sob. "This is so messed up."

He smiles ruefully. "We're spies. Haven't you read that part of the job description when you signed up?"

_Be the shield. Protect people from forces they don't understand. _

She must've missed a clause or two in the SHIELD recruitment manual about running the risk of being one of_ those_ forces. Why did no one tell her about that? Someone should've damn told her about that. "I bet May ordered you not to tell anyone."

"She did." He says, trying to keep his voice neutral. "Well, that, scrubbing the feed off each of the cameras around here, and cleaning this huge mess you left here."

"So, will you?"

He gives her a boyish smile. "Bobbi once told me I obsess on cleaning way too much. Well, excluding folding anything, of course. That's my Achilles' heel."

The way Skye's lips tighten is enough to tell him that she is in no joking mood. Backtracking, he purses his lip and offers her his honest answer. "I would not be telling anyone about this, but for the record, I don't think it is right—not telling them."

"I agree."

Skye's quick response is not exactly what he's expecting. "Your superior officer doesn't seem to think so."

"May believes that the lesser the people who know, the lesser the chance that _it_ gets triggered." She replies with a sigh. "She doesn't want me to be placed in the index."

"Is that what you want? To be included in the index?"

She turns sharply to the former mercenary. She is surprised that he even had to ask. Both of them knew the policy on out of control people with gifts. And she, for all intents and purposes, is out of control. "What I want is to this thing to stop."

He exhales loudly. He gets that, but at the same time, he also knows that people do not always get what they want. Whether she likes it or not, she's a gifted now. That oftentimes tends to be a permanent thing. "And if it cannot be stopped?"

The heavens must be playing a sick joke on her. It is not that long ago when it is she who was in Hunter's shoes. The one who decides on a gifted's fate. And boy, she did decide.

She could still feel the sickening recoil of that decision.

Now, tables are turned. From being the shooter, she becomes the target of somebody else's gun. One wrong move and she's dead, it's over.

Skye knows that a powered people like her (god, she should really try getting used to calling herself that) will always be a threat. There will be people or groups who will want to get their hands on them. Control them like what Garrett did with Mike. Brainwash them like what Hydra did with Donnie.

Now, she couldn't blame those two for wanting to run. Just as she couldn't blame S.H.I.E.L.D. for letting their agents do what needs to be _done_.

So with a shaky breath, she makes her decision. It isn't easy; but she also knows that the less indifferent she is about this matter, the lesser the chances people will get hurt. She's a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent now, it is her job to protect people from forces they don't understand. Even if it means protecting them from _her_.

And besides, regardless of how small a possibility it might be, she is still so not interested in being a brainwashed supervillain.

"It can." She says.

Hunter found her response determined and cryptic at the same time. Machines have off buttons, guns have safety levers—people don't. "Okay… I'm gonna bite. How can you be so sure?"

He felt the blow coming way before she stares him straight in the eye and grabs his wrists. If her pleading eyes were any indication, she won't be giving him a very acceptable answer_. _

He suddenly regrets asking her. Whatever she's about to say, it can't possibly be good.

"I am sure because I am now looking at the only person who can do it."

Hunter really hates it when he's right.


	12. The Discovery

_**This is a short filler chapter with some original characters. Our beloved characters will be back in the next one. **_

* * *

_**Somewhere in South America**_

"Let's go home, Kyle." Maggie Winston begs her husband as he rummages through what she thinks are two huge piles of trash. Sometimes she wonders if she married a garbage sorter instead of the big shot physics professor he so proudly claims to be. She thought they went to that country to have a decent vacation for once. To unwind while feasting their eyes with all the amazing sceneries the South American terrain has to offer.

She was wrong; she was so wrong.

"I'm close to the discovery of a lifetime Mags." Her husband says without looking up from the massive heap in front of him. The humming of the device in his hands sounded like music to his ears. The source of the low level gamma radiation is somewhere near. Both his gut and radiation detection device say so. "I can feel it."

"Yeah, sure." She mutters to herself. If she isn't in love with the bastard, she'd be long gone by now. It is perhaps the only reason why instead of leaving him with his trash to explore the nearby shops alone, she chooses to stand behind him and wait. She lets him dig for a while.

It's a pretty long while.

However, the end of Maggie's proverbial string came when her stomach starts to protest wildly underneath her flouncy dress. She looks at her watch. "I don't think a ten minute break would hurt. How about we eat first in that corner deli? I'd kill for a grilled cheese sandwich right now."

"You go ahead, Mags." He replies absently. It earns him a huge frown from her end. That, and a promise of one whole night in the figurative (and the literal) doghouse. He could stay there with his _discovery of a lifetime_ for all she cares.

"Fine." She huffs. She loves her husband, but not to the extent of pointless martyrdom. She can always love him again after she's eaten, anyway.

He waves her off without looking. "Thanks, dear. Love you!"

"Of course you do." She mumbles under her breath.

"I know you love me, too!" He yells after her before she goes out of earshot.

Maggie chuckles despite her growing irritation. "And I everyday ask myself why."

His wife has only been gone for roughly eight minutes before his device started ringing softly. He is so close.

He digs a little more.

The first thing he sees is some worn out tip of a metallic stick. It's not that long—about a foot and a half in length. It shimmers so bright under the scorching sun; he had to squint just to see it better.

In that exact moment, the device in his hands goes haywire. The values rise continuously off the charts. In a move which can only be described as mixture of curiosity and stupidity, he picks the object up with his bare hands, "I wonder what—"

A heartbeat is all it took before everything changed. He screams, his voice driving all his inhibitions away. A wall opens inside him, filling him with emotions he never thought he would ever feel. His senses become magnified, but so as his anger. He is so furious at everything. Stuff became clearer inside his head, all the misjudgment, all the lies.

A discovery of a lifetime indeed.


	13. The Return

**This is my own version of Season 2B, so there will be some familiar lines in here somewhere. AOS is not mine; the typos are.**

* * *

It took May almost five hours before she returns to base. Her errand lasted longer than she liked, but she should've expected that, with her ex-husband being involved. He certainly wasn't all that happy to see her again. He has a right to get pissed though, after all, she did purposely evade all of his calls for years. How long has it been since she last saw him? Four? Five years?

But at least their meeting did not end up as bad as she had initially anticipated.

"_Don't worry; you did not leave your door open." Were the first words to leave May's mouth when the good psychologist enters his office, a stack of papers in hand._

_It is clear that the familiar voice catches him off guard. "This is a surprise."_

"_S.H.I.E.L.D. needs your help."_

_Having his ex appear in his office unannounced, asking for a favor for S.H.I.E.L.D of all things, is not the kind of reunion he envisioned. His reaction says as much. He takes a seat on his desk. "Four and a half years without contact, and that's the first thing you'll say to me? You haven't changed at all, Melinda."_

"_No." She replies, pauses for a beat, and then sighs. She takes the chair directly across him. "But someone I know did, and you're the only one who can help her."_

_His eyebrows rise slightly at the small sliver of emotion that he spots on her face. Weirdly enough, that actually surprised him more than seeing his former wife in his office for the first time in years. "Changed how?" _

_She shifts her weight, a tell that he knows too well. "Will you help her or not?" _

_He wants to smile at the impatient look on her face, it reminds him a little of before. He missed seeing that. "She's that bad, huh?"_

"_She's that good." She tells him, sliding Skye's file across his desk. "I'm her S.O."_

_Andrew glances briefly at the folder before pushing it back towards his ex-wife. He has never been too fond of that tacky eagle logo. "I do not want to read whatever is in this thing. I want to hear it from you. What makes this…" He reads the name emblazoned in front of the folder and briefly wonders about the agent's lack of last name. "…Agent Skye so special?" _

"_Isn't my presence here enough of an explanation?"_

_He leans back on his chair and tents his fingers under his chin. It is. He is curious as to what has finally forced his former wife to go back in the field after vehemently swearing against it all those years ago. More so, Melinda taking an agent under her wing? It is not like her at all. "This is not actually a favor for S.H.I.E.L.D., is it?"_

_He could still read her well, she'll give him that. "No."_

_He smiles. "Well, Melinda, you should've just started with that."_

The glass door opens with a soft swoosh.

"Where is Hunter?" Was the first question May asks Skye when she reappears in her glass room.

Skye senses the alarm in the older agent's posture the moment she steps in. It almost makes her smile. She could really be quite a mother hen sometimes. "You punched him, didn't you?" She asks her.

May's jaw tightens minutely. She looks thoroughly pissed as she crosses her arms. "What you did earlier, Skye—don't do it again." She could count in one hand the number of things that had truly terrified her. That scene with that gun is clearly one of them. For a brief moment, she thought that the gun was real, and she's…gone. "Promise me."

The young hacker offers her a small smile. "In my defense, it seemed like a good idea at the time." Honestly, it was. It is not as if her earthquake juju has an off switch that she could flick whenever she feels like it. Telling her S.O. that, however, would only end in an argument she will never win, so she chooses to shut up about it instead.

"Promise me."

"Fine, yeah, whatever." She concedes.

May sits beside her on the bed, her face reassuring. "What was it about?"

Skye clenches and unclenches her fist experimentally. They weren't shaking anymore, but her palms do still sting like shit. She made a mental note do something about her nails later. "What is what about?"

"Your nightmare."

She is slightly surprised that May knows about that, but she already learned the hard way that it is not a very good idea to question her. She shrugs. "I'm fine. I already forgot about it."

May is slightly amused at Skye's lame attempts at lying. She should know better than to lie to her. She is as familiar with Skye's tells as she is with the back of her own hand. She could practically sense them from a mile away. "Try again."

She sighs. "Ward was pointing a gun at me, then you stepped in and—"

May shoots her a tired look. She's still not buying it. "If it was about Ward, you'd be angry, not scared. Hunter said you were scared."

She has a point, Skye realizes. A mirthless chuckle escapes her throat. "I'm fine, May. You know Hunter, he always tends to exaggerate things. It was just a dream. It wasn't real."

"But you thought it was." May said. "Talk to me."

"Talk?" Skye's eyebrows shoot upwards. "Who are you and what've you done with my functional mute S.O.?"

"Skye…"

She makes a face and completely ignores May's all-too caring stare. "You might know her, actually. The one who avoids talking like the plague? Yeah, that's her."

"I get that you use humor to deal with problems, but if you are serious about getting through this mess, you have to stop deflecting."

Skye rolls her eyes. "So we're going with those big words right now?" She notes. "And seriously, are you trying to psychoanalyze me?"

"If not me, then someone else will."

_Oh._

Her words are enough for Skye to draw a workable conclusion. She's bringing in a shrink. A professional emotion puller. Clearly the last thing she (and the probably world) needs. "You've gotta be kidding me… you're bringing in a shrink?"

"He has done this before."

But Skye's not having any of it. "Emotions trigger this thing inside me, and you called a shrink? Do you want me to wipe out the entire west coast with a tsunami?"

"Coulson thinks it's a good idea."

She snaps. "Oh great, so you two have been discussing my tumultuous mental state behind my back now?"

"Skye…"

She doesn't usually hate it when she says her name like that, but now she's starting to reconsider. "Did you also tell Coulson that I am a circus act that could level an entire city block if I so much as sneezed?" She wasn't entirely sure if she could do that, but hey, weirder things have happened.

"Coulson thinks you have early signs of PTSD." She states firmly.

Skye's eyes widen at that. "What?"

May folds her arms across her chest. She watches her agent carefully, assessing for cues. "Come to think of it, I'm still not fully convinced myself that you don't."

"I'm fine!" Skye insists.

May presses her lips into a thin line. "You're fine? Just like you were fine this morning? And the day before that? How fine were you when you made a whole underground city collapse on your head?"

She shoots her S.O. a glare. "Let me to talk to Coulson."

"There's too much on his plate right now. You just have to make do with me."

"Is that why he's not visiting me in this hell hole?" She asks, visibly hurt. "Because there's _a lot on his plate_?"

"No." May replies gently, realizing how important it is for her to choose her next words carefully. "He is not coming down here because I told him you don't want him to."

"What?" The bed trembles slightly, but instead of springing away, May puts her hand on Skye's shoulders. The look the shoots her is so tender, it almost forces air out of Skye's lungs.

"You want him to see you like this?"

"I don't want to lie to him."

"There's no lying with Phil." May says with utmost certainty. "Once he sees you like that, he'll know there's something wrong. You're lucky he hasn't noticed it already."

Skye runs her hands through her hair in frustration. She's so tired of all of this nonsense. "But something is wrong!"

"He's already blaming himself over Trip's death." The older agent reasons. "The moment he realizes something happened to _you_—of all people—because of that temple, a temple that he led us all to, I don't know what he'll do."

"Coulson is a levelheaded agent. He won't simply go on a rampage over anything."

"Do not underestimate your worth, Skye."

"It's not even his fault!" She yells. "If I didn't go down there—"

"A lot of people could've died." May finishes for her. "You stopped a catastrophe—"

"Yeah, by being the catastrophe myself." She murmurs under her breath. "And a lot of people still died. Amazing me."

May could not blame Skye for all her self-loathing. Having an ability as destructive as hers, it must be hell of a thing to carry. "Give Dr. Garner a chance."

"Why would I tell things to a total stranger when I can barely tell them to my friends?" She'd give every penny she has on her name just to have a chance to talk to Fitzsimmons about the most mundane things again.

"He's not exactly a stranger."

_He is to me._ "I grew up in the system. I've been through enough of those mind picking sessions to know that I hate them." She tells her. "I hate him already and I haven't even met the guy."

"You'll like this one."

Skye's forehead furrows in confusion. Something's weird in May's expression. "Yeah? And why is that?"

"Because I was married to him."

Oh_. _

_Oh._

It takes Skye merely a split second to digest that. The look of doom on her face is completely replaced with utter excitement all of a sudden. "Married?" Her features brighten considerably. "You really have a husband? I thought you were just making that up."

"Ex-husband." May corrects her. Skye's reaction reminded May how a puppy looks like after being handed a brand new scented chew toy. She's never gonna let this go.

"So when will he be here?"

Even if it's at her expense, seeing the smile return on Skye's face makes her decision to bring in her husband so much worth it.


	14. The Transition

A soft swooshing sound jerks Skye awake. It isn't much of a loss though. Sleep isn't as comfortable as it used to. It doesn't even feel like sleeping anymore. It's more like lying still and doing nothing. She wonders if she'll ever sleep normally again. Maybe this is her new normal.

The very thought of it makes her shudder.

A man enters her line of vision. _Is he—_

"Yes, I'm the husband." He greets, answering her unspoken question with a friendly smile. "You must be Skye."

"If you dialed, 1-800-freak-show, then I'm your girl." She rubs the drowsiness off her face and sits up. "Dr. Garner, I assume."

He notes the edge of bitterness in her tone. He offers her his hand. She only eyes it warily, but he knows better than to take offense. "Please, call me Andrew. Sorry if I woke you. They told me to go right in."

They, meaning May. The kind smile he sends to her direction is comforting enough though, so she lets it slide. "S'okay. I wasn't in too deep yet."

The doctor may be aptly versed in pretending not to study a person's face, but May has trained her too well. Clearly, he's waiting for her to be the first one to talk.

She obliges. Leans in conspiratorially, "So… Agent May. How did you pull that one off?"

He tilts his head, his grin growing a tad wider. His former wife has briefed her that this topic might come up quite soon. At least she hasn't called him _Mr. Melinda May_ yet. "Melinda did warn me about this."

_Melinda, huh? _Skye's ears flutter. She's so close to getting some juicy secrets about her S.O.—right from the very source. She could feel it. "About what?"

"Your admirable curiosity."

A small chuckle escapes her throat. "Oh, believe me; my curiosity about this particular subject is way beyond admirable."

"I didn't come here to talk about my marriage."

Less than a minute in, and he's already giving her that shrink-y look. "Well, mom only got me to talk to you because of _your_ marriage." She tells him. "Tell you what, if you give me one dirty little secret about my S.O., you will officially be my new favorite person."

_Mom? Okay, that's something. _"She also told me a lot of other things about you." He mutters gently. The room has been fixed well. If not for his ex showing him the video feed of what happened mere hours ago, he'd think she's just making things up. "There's this incident with Agent Hunter—"

"Come on, just one—"

He cuts her off. "Stop."

Skye's rolls her eyes at his eerily familiar tone. Maybe he's more like May than she originally thought.

"Melinda told me you had a nightmare."

"Nah." She shrugs. "Everybody gets them. I had a dream once in which I accidentally drank—"

"Yes, but not everyone tears down things while at it."

She folds her arms across her chest. "Maybe I'm trying to go hipster this year for a change."

Andrew's been on the job far too long to let a little defense mechanism stop him from getting though. "You ordered Agent Hunter to shoot you, am I correct?"

"With an ICER." She points out. "By now I'm sure you know that I'm not exactly fond of being shot by real guns."

His ex did mention something about her being shot twice in the abdomen a few months back, but that's a story for another time. He nods vaguely. "What do you feel… when it's happening?"

She scoffs at the question. "When I get upset or scared, instead of peeing my pants like what normal people do, I shake the entire fucking country! What do you think?"

He shoots her that shrink-y look again. But instead of prodding further, he gives her a breathing room to collect her thoughts. If he pushed her too hard, she will almost certainly clam up and never speak to him again. "Uh, we eloped. And no, it wasn't Vegas. Though Melinda does love Vegas."

As expected, the frown slowly forming on Skye's face completely dissipates. "Oh my god." This is it. The opening she's been waiting for. "Did she wear a gown? Please tell me she wore a gown."

"I wasn't holding a gun to her head, so no, she did not wear a gown." He said. "But she could wear a couple of dish cloths and she will still be most beautiful woman I have ever seen."

She's starting to feel a little comfortable talking to him. But then again, he's a shrink. It's always dangerous to feel too comfortable with a shrink. "You are trying to make me feel comfortable." She says with a small chuckle. "You're good."

"Apparently not good enough; you still haven't answered my question."

She sighs heavily. Insisting on silence wouldn't get Andrew (and May for that matter) off her back. She has to give him something or he wouldn't stop asking. "I… I also asked him to shoot me because I couldn't stop it. I was trying to save the people I care about."

"You mean SHIELD?"

"SHIELD—the SHIELD now—is like a family to me. I will do anything to protect them."

"Even if they want to put you in the index?" He asks. "Seems a huge transition… from being an agent."

"Yeah, now I will be the one potentially hunted by agents." She replies casually. "Can't say I'm too excited about that."

"Are you afraid they'll turn their backs on you?"

"I don't think they have a choice." She tells him. "I have been there. Did my share of back turning. Wasn't very cool of me."

Though Andrew's impeccable calmness bothers her a little, she's starting to see what her S.O. means when she said she'll like him. There's no judgment in his eyes. He may not have some weird superpower himself, but they way he intently listens to her guilt-ridden venting makes her think that it really doesn't matter. He's easy to talk to, and as cliché as it may sound, talking to someone does help.

"You haven't been sleeping well." He points out.

She snorts. "Did the bags under my eyes give me away?"

"Do you want to sleep again, Skye?"

She merely stares at him and says nothing.

"Sleep makes you remember how monumentally painful your life is, how much on point was I?"

She looks away, and tries to blink her tears back. It's a lame attempt and she knows it. "My eyebags must be that bad."

"Whatever your abilities are, they are triggered by pain. Pain you keep buried deep within you. Your dreams don't bring you pain because the pain is already there."

"Well," she chuckles despite herself. "That sounds like a ton of psychobabble crap to me."

"Get used to it. There will be more from where that came from." He smiles. "And for what it's worth, I get paid a lot for this psychobabble crap."

"You should be." She said. "I've once been told that I'm sort of a shrink's nightmare. And that's even without this curse yet."

"Curse?" His eyebrows furrow. "Aren't you being a little too harsh on yourself?"

"What do you want me to call it? A superpower?" She scoffs again. "Wow… saying that out loud made it sound more ridiculous than it was in my head."

"You have a potential to help a lot of people, Skye. Haven't you realized that?"

For the first time since their conversation began, Skye's smile disappears. Whatever potential he's talking about, she's not seeing it. "I don't know which rock you've been staying under these past few days, but in case you haven't heard, I cause an earthquake that killed twenty six people and injured two hundred sixty three others."

Andrew is surprised to hear her say that. May told him that she kept that particular information from her, to lessen the amount of stress she's already in. Guess his patient is not that much in the dark as his ex wife led him to believe.

His shock may be too obvious in his face because Skye answers his questions without waiting for him to ask them. "I'm a hacker. In a room full of electronic medical equipment. Do the math."

"I'm under the impression that you already did." He says. "Those are pretty exact numbers."

The muscles in her jaw tenses minutely as she speaks. "Now you probably know why, as you've so nicely described, I'm so full of pain. Thank you for that, by the way."

Skye wishes her shrink won't look at her so sympathetically. It only makes her want to curl up in a ball and scream. He asks her, "Did you want all those people to die?"

"Don't." Skye warns. It's not a question of wants and intentions anymore. People died, and knowing what she could have and could have not done won't bring them back. "Just don't."

"The people who got killed are Hydra agents, Skye."

"Not all of them, doc." She said glumly. "Not all of them."


	15. The Storm

**Heard the news about Slingshot coming to AoS next year. God, the next three months after the midseason finale is gonna be torture!**

* * *

"Hey, Mack." Skye greets her visitor as he emerges from the door later that night. Her session with Dr. Garner was too draining that merely thinking about it already exhausts her to tears. All that shrinky stuff he said is making her head hurt. Seeing Mack may just be the distraction that she needs.

May told her that Andrew would be helping her out of her current screw ups. But honestly, despite spending so much time talking with the good doctor, she still feels more _screwed_ than _helped_.

"I've heard you've had quite an eventful afternoon with the shrink." Mack says.

"Eventful? Try depressing." She almost forgot how his towering frame could practically dwarf everything around him. She practically had to crane her neck just to see the entirety of his face. "What brings you to my humble and transparent abode?"

He steps in front of her across the glass and gives her his best attempt at a gentle smile. He hopes it's enough to spare her the same jail vibe he feels whenever he goes down there to visit. "I would come in, but I'm a little bit on a time crunch. Coulson got us all working on tearing Hydra apart."

"Yeah, May told me about that." She tells him. "Wish I could help, but Warden Simmons is pretty strict about my stay in the glass castle. I forgot how obstinate she can be when she puts her mind to it."

"A stubborn doctor for an equally stubborn patient." He grins. "It's for your own good."

She makes a face. "It better be. I've been sitting here for days like a pet reptile."

That earns her a chuckle from him. "Just don't start eating insects behind our backs."

She swears that the intense grumbling sound from her stomach is purely coincidental, and has nothing to do with the prospect of eating bugs. That's just gross.

"Are they not feeding you?" Mack asks, trying so hard not to laugh.

"Sorry 'bout that." She eyes the pouch in Mack's hands. Praying that they're something that resembles food, she asks, "What's in that bag of yours?"

"Ah." Mack almost forgot about that. "Sorry it's not food, but this is really why I am here. I came here to show you this." He slowly pulls out the bag's content, and holds it out for her to see.

Coulson enlisted Mack's help to create a replica of the obelisk, along with Fitz. He said that it would be a crucial bait to use against Hydra. Since no one but their team—save of course for the currently missing Raina—knows that the obelisk had been destroyed in Puerto Rico, there is a good chance that Hydra would still want their hands on that piece of alien tech. Mack hadn't seen the actual obelisk, only photos of it, so he thought he should consult Skye. She'd spent some time with that thing inside that temple, and if there's anyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. who can tell if his replica looks a fake or not, it's her.

"That's—" Intense fear overwhelms her gut the moment her eyes land on the item in Mack's hand. Her heart begins to pound mercilessly inside her chest. The tendrils of dread lingering under her skin are suddenly awakened by the memories carved in every crevice and every curve of that godforsaken thing. It forces her to take a couple of steps back, just to keep as much distance as she can between herself and the root of all the misfortunes in her life. She takes a sharp breath.

"Oh no, this is not—" Mack's words gets lost between the exploding glass and the collapsing ceiling. The ground moves unsteadily under his feet.

Everything else fades in the background as Skye's vision zeroes in on the obelisk. It looks exactly the same as the one from the temple but at the same time, it also looks different. She could not explain why, but somehow, seeing it again after all that has happened made the thing look a lot more sinister than it once was.

Without warning, a loud explosion jams into Mack's ears, making him momentarily woozy. He turns his head to find its source, only to find the obelisk quickly disintegrating in his hand. He openmouthedly stares at the dusty air it had left on its wake.

"Please get out of this room, Mack." Skye tries to say the words as calmly as she could as she watches Mack helplessly quiver in front of her in such alarming intensity.

Mack's legs buckle underneath him. "What the—"

Her arms are trembling so hard, and she couldn't make it stop. Her eyes frantically attempt to connect with him, to make him look at her and understand how important it is for him to leave. He has to leave. "GO NOW!"

Mack looks down on the floor in confusion. The ground isn't the one that is shaking—_he is._ However, before he could make an attempt to move, he is suddenly hurtled backwards against the farthest wall by an invisible wave of energy. He flies off like a piece of crumpled paper, practically weightless against the force that uprooted him from the ground. His head meets the concrete with a painful thud, smearing copious amount of red along its unforgiving surface.

He slides to the floor, unconscious.

As if the universe is playing a very sick joke on Skye, everything reaches a standstill only after it's already too late.

"Mack!" She ignores the countless amount of glass that sprayed all over her path as she runs to the slumped agent. She tries to shake him awake, but he remains stubbornly unresponsive. His head lolls lifelessly to one side, revealing an alarming amount of blood pooling behind his neck. Her vision dims slightly at the sight. Little by little, dizziness creeps inside her head. "No, no, no, Mack!"

The ground starts to shake once more.

The stinging in her arms started slowly. She feels as if a thousand tiny needles are poking through her skin. It starts somewhere from her neck, crawling almost at a snail's pace towards her shoulders and elbows, before finally reaching the tips of her fingers. It's not too painful, but it's not comfortable either.

A loud crash fleetingly catches Skye's attention. Her heart seizes painfully as she watches a figure—who looks very much like Fitz—leave behind whatever machine he was holding and dash worriedly towards them.

"What happened?" The engineer asks hastily. He checks Mack's eyes for some sort of pupilary reaction, but not without quickly scanning Skye for any injuries first. Neither of them seemed fine. "Are you okay?"

She ignores his question completely. She swallows. Her arms are beginning to throb. "How—how is he?"

"Not good." Fitz answers abruptly in a tone that made Skye's insides twist agonizingly tight. He goes on checking Mack for other damage. His movements are almost mechanical, but the thing that's really killing her is his silence. "I need to call Jemma." He tells her.

"I'll do it." Skye tells him quickly as she shakily picks herself up from the ground. By then, both of her upper limbs are hurting like hell—as if a very tight band is cutting off her circulation. Fitz is telling her something, yet the only thing she could hear are muted words that seem to come from the end of a very long tunnel. She tries to speak, but all that leaves her mouth is a soft groan. The room shifts underneath her feet.

Everything's way too dark after that.


	16. The Suspicion

Skye wakes up in a different room two days after. She's on a makeshift bed in the Cage. This is the third time she'd been knocked out this week. That has to be some sort of record.

Apparently, Mack's slipped into a coma after sustaining a significant amount of bleeding inside his brain. He's stable, but they don't know when he will wake up.

Skye thinks they just don't have the heart to tell her that he probably won't.

Everyone knows it by then. Her abilities. Her team calls it a 'gift', openly refusing to brand it as anything else but that. She once made a mistake of calling it a curse in front of Coulson, and the way he stared at her made her feel like she just shot a puppy in the head.

After that, she ordered her mouth to consciously avoid that term like a plague—a relatively easy thing to do, given that she hadn't talked to anyone else since the incident. Not even to May.

But damn, if this were a month ago, she'd already be whining the ears off of one of her teammates right now. The pain in her arms is excruciating, she can barely flex her elbows. Bruises pepper her from her shoulders to almost all of her fingertips. Some of her nailbeds had turned into purple messes that she could barely look at.

_Nope, not a curse at all._

Simmons said she has acquired about a hundred hairline fractures in both her upper limbs. Then she throws out words like petechiae, osteoprogenitor cells, and hematoma, which she probably thought is helping even when they're most surely not.

As it turned out, clearing her mind and focusing to a single point do not actually stop her abilities from manifesting. They just direct them somewhere else, namely, herself.

_No curse in there, right?_

Sometime in the afternoon, Simmons knocks at her door again. The biochemist's voice takes a stern tune the moment she sees the untouched food in the table. Skye is still on her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Exactly as she last saw her hours ago. It's like she hasn't moved at all. "You didn't eat."

"I'm not hungry." Skye replies flatly, the spark in her eyes gone. Simmons thinks she looked way better after she was shot. And that says a lot.

"It has been two days since you woke up." Simmons tells her with a frown. "You haven't eaten a single thing."

Skye turns to face the wall and gingerly pulls the starched white hospital sheets to cover her small frame. "Just go."

"I'm not leaving here until you have at least one bite." Simmons determinedly states as she takes a seat on Skye's bed. "Know what? I think I might stay here for a while."

Skye sighs, tugs the sheets away and sits up beside her scientist friend. Beginnings of a massive headache are forming right behind her eyes, but she chooses to ignore it.

Simmons probably senses it too, judging by the words she says to her next. "I don't have to test your blood to tell that you're hypoglycemic. You cannot rely purely on intravenous fluids. You have to eat something."

Skye picks up a piece of fruit and chews it up with a flourish. She hopes it's enough to make her go away.

"One more."

Skye glares at Jemma, but the unwavering expression on the scientist's face forces her to wordlessly take another bite in defeat. She could barely taste the thing, and she almost gagged at the metallic aftertaste it left in her mouth.

Simmons, who unknowingly turns into the god of forced nutrition whenever the need arises, is far from done. She picks up the small cup of fruit on the tray and hands it to Skye. "Finish this up."

"Oh come on!"

"An _'oh come on'_ besides '_I'm not hungry_' and '_just go_'," Jemma muses, "I think I'm starting to make real progress with you now."

"Tell Coulson that I'm fine." Skye said. "He worries too much. You all worry too much."

Well look at that. Three full sentences. "Guess we're on a roll here."

"Jemma."

"Skye," Simmons begins, "you're generally not the queen of quiet in this team. You must understand our concern when all of a sudden you develop an unhealthy aversion to talking our ears off after the _thing_."

"Thing?" She scoffs. "You mean after I killed one member of our team, and then half kills another?"

"Skye!" Jemma is horrified beyond words at her friend's harsh words. She literally is tempted to shake her senseless until she sees reason.

"Sorry. Maybe I'm just…" Skye lets out strong shudder. She shakes her head a couple of times and wipes a stray tear away with her shirt sleeve. "I don't—"

Her words are cut off when the scientist suddenly pulls her in for a fierce hug. "We'll find a way through this. We always do."

"You should be afraid of me, Jemma." Skye's words are muffled by Simmons' shirt as she speaks. She feels so drained. "I am."

"Oh Skye…" Simmons then releases her from her grasp. Trying to keep it together in front of her friend is continuously proving to be an impossible task. But she promised Coulson that she'd stay strong for Skye. She'll do everything in her power to keep that promise. She shoots her a firm stare. "Skye, look at me."

She does, and Simmons could almost feel her own heart breaking at the sight. This is not the Skye she knows. Not by a long shot. "We'll get through this."

Skye's not so sure about that. Not anymore. But she nods nonetheless.

* * *

"How is she?" May corners Simmons as she was about to make her way back to the kitchen. She is carrying Skye's tray with her. Sadly, most of its contents barely left their respective plates.

"We have to do something, May. She barely talks. Doesn't eat." Simmons sighs heavily. "She doesn't even smile anymore!"

May runs her hand on her face, feeling as if the weight of the entire world is upon her shoulders. Trip is dead, Mack is in coma, Fitz is barely hanging on from all the stress, Bobbi is too worried about Mack to care about anything else, and Coulson is going berserk against Hydra.

All that's left are Simmons and Hunter.

And honestly, she is still not a hundred percent sure about Hunter. He's become more pensive since she left him with Skye a couple of days ago.

As far as May is concerned, Lance Hunter is an unknown variable. He's keeping something from the team.

"Skye's condition right now—I wouldn't wish that on anyone." Simmons dumps the contents of the tray into the bin with a little more force than she intended. "She doesn't deserve this."

May remains impassive at Jemma's rare display of frustration and anger. "Have you talked to Hunter?"

"Agent Hunter?" The furrow between Jemma's eyebrows deepens with the sudden subject change. "No, why?"

"Noticed anything strange with him?"

Simmons pursed her lip in thought. "Well, now that you mentioned it, I think he's acting a little strange lately. He's less cheery these days. Doesn't drink much beer anymore. That I am quite sure of; I've counted his stash."

May's expression hardens slightly, but the biochemist does not seem to notice the sudden shift in May's posture, so she goes on, "But then again, considering the week we all had…"

"You may be right." May says finally, cutting Jemma off.

If ever there is indeed something going on with Hunter, she'll handle it.

God, how many more problems could she take?

"Well, if that's all Agent May, I'll go ahead and see Mack." Simmons said, gesturing towards the med pods. "Maybe if I could help him get well, Skye will feel a little better."

The specialist merely gives her a polite smile. "Okay."

Simmons is almost out of earshot when May suddenly decides to get her attention once more. "Hey Simmons?" May calls out. Jemma turns back to her. "Can you and Fitz meet me in the lab later? I need to go over some weapon specs with you two."

"Weapon specs?" Jemma asks. "What for?"

"For something that might save us when the time comes."


	17. The Favor

**A/N: Here are two new chapters. Btw, have you seen the winter finale? It's awesome! **

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"You called for me, love?" Hunter must admit, Skye's surprise takeover of the mainframe of his car is quite an impressive feat. It's standard SHIELD-issued vehicle, so it has encryptions on top of encryptions on top of more encryptions.

Only Skye would think that hacking into a car's computer just to say 'I'm looking for a mercenary, do you know one?' is funny. He's going at about a hundred miles per hour then. If he crashed, it could've cost him a limb or two. Give or take an eye.

"Twelve hours, really?" Skye asks. She could count on her fingers the number of times when Hunter chooses not to wear his signature leather jackets. This is not one of those days. "I had to wait for twelve hours before I can talk to you?

"You commandeered my car's operating system!" He was actually more impressed than offended. The fact that Skye didn't even bother gloating about it the moment he entered her room also helped. It's as if what she did was as simple as painting her nails. "And I was two states away, how did you even know where to find me?"

"Because tracking people is my job?" She offers. "You do know that I'm a hacker, right?"

Hunter scans the room. "I'm not seeing a laptop here. Wait a second, can you also hack with your—"

Skye sends him an exaggerated eyeroll. "Really, Hunter? I'm a freak now, yes, but not that much."

She's smiling, but it doesn't actually reach her eyes. It's as if she's merely trying to make him think that she's okay even when she's not. The others told him that she'd stopped talking after the incident with Mack, and he finds the fact that her aversion to speaking to people does not seem to include him quite flattering. But then again, he did promise to do something for her, so maybe that's why he's getting the special treatment. "Hey, I'm merely asking." He says, waving his hand at her dismissively. "No need to be so touchy about it."

Skye mightily fights the urge to smack him in the head with her pillow. "What took you so long anyway?"

"Something came up. The team needed backup." He replies curtly. Almost evasively, in fact.

_The team needed backup._

Skye flinches. The pit of her stomach twists slightly. "Oh."

"It's nothing, really."

She should've been out there with them, helping. But no, instead of doing her job like she's supposed to, she's trapped in this cage, praying to high heavens that she may find a way to keep herself from bringing the entire building down on their heads. "What happened?"

"A little shooting here and there, you know _the works_."

He dodged a question like a pro. Too bad her S.O thought her how not to get fooled. "Come on! I'm dying here. Least you can do is to regale me with your mission stories."

Hunter sees through her act almost immediately. "It's alright now, really. Just a small complication. You don't have to worry." He wouldn't actually call Coulson's brush with death because of Hydra a small complication, but what the hell. Telling Skye that would bring good to no one. And he'd rather not deal with a huge earthquake right now. "You rubbed the lamp; your fine-looking genie is here. What do you need me for?"

She hesitates for a beat. "The favor that I told you about… I think it's time."

If Hunter isn't a seasoned spy, he probably would've blanched at that request. He thought she wasn't being serious about that thing. "Just so we are clear, you are talking about Plan A, right? Because I'm still not sure I can be totally on board with the other one."

"Yes."

Honestly, even Plan A also doesn't sit well with him. But since it's the lesser of two evils, he'd play along. "Okay."

"Tomorrow. When everyone's asleep."

Skye could practically see the internal debate running inside Hunter's head, and she can't have that. She assures him, "I'll handle May. Coulson, too. You deal with Bobbi and Fitzsimmons."

With teeth gnashed so tight, he lets out a deep breath and nods.

He could only hope for forgiveness for what he's about to do.


	18. The Facade

**Here's the second update for today, as promised. Btw, i took the liberty of modifying the summary of this story to give the readers a better grasp of where this one is going. This three month hiatus is going to be hell.**

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The soft swoosh of the automatic doors drags Coulson's attention out of the holographic screen of Fury's toolbox the next morning. He closes the box immediately so as to give May his full attention. "Is anything wrong?" He asks, then changes his mind the last minute, "…wait, don't answer that."

"How's the plan going?" May asks, even though Hydra is probably one of the last things in her mind right now.

"Got my eyes on four Hydra heads. It's only a matter of time before we could take them out—or rather, before they take each other out for us." His smile does not reach his eyes.

_A plan._ Though his words sound a little too rehearsed for her, at least now he has a plan. "Good."

He pauses for a beat. He seats on the edge of his desk and gazes at his friend pointedly. "You got that look again. And it doesn't really say _good_."

"It's Skye."

He kind of had the feeling that it is, but he still couldn't help but hope that it isn't. "What about her?"

May is tempted to glare at his outward nonchalance, but she knows him too well to fall for his act. His neutral expression is worthless to her penetrating eyes. "So that's what you're going for?"

He pretends not to understand her question. He tilts his head and waits for his friend to talk first.

"If you are expecting me to say anything else, stop acting like you don't care. You are not fooling anybody." She deadpans.

He shrugs.

Infuriated by her friend's faux calm, she snaps, "Fine." She turns to leave, but not before she spots his shoulders falling.

Coulson exhales heavily. His neutral expression fades. "Wait."

She glances back at him, a tired look clouding her features. She waits for him to speak.

He tries to find a way where they could talk about this matter without ending up fighting in some form, but his extensive diplomacy training had not prepared him for this. No one in the academy had taught him how to deal with your closest friends making you worry about your surrogate daughter having a mental breakdown instead of telling you that she had gained some alien superpowers instead. Should he enumerate the reasons why keeping from him a big secret like this a bad idea? Should he mirror her stern looks and tell her everything he wants to say with eyes alone?

Should he yell at her?

He scratches the thought as quickly as it came. He really shouldn't be yelling at her. Yelling at Melinda May is never a good idea.

So Phil finally finds himself leaning back on his perch and loosening his tie instead. To hell with it. The two of them had been sitting on this one long enough. God knows how many excuses he'd made just to delay dealing with this particular issue. He's exhausted with creating plans against Hydra that it came to a point that he has nothing to plan for anymore. He's created a counter attack for every counter attack they could come up with. Hell, even their counter attack for their counter attack has a counter attack. He never even thought that was possible. He mutters under his breath. "I shouldn't let Fitz convince me into watching that Christopher Nolan movie."

May rolls her eyes and turns to leave once more. She makes it to the door this time before Phil calls her out again.

"If it wasn't for that incident with Mack, were you ever planning to tell me what actually happened to her?"

She turns. Poker face on, she folds her arms across her chest and admits without missing a beat. "No."

He pulls himself off the desk and crosses the room towards her. She stays exactly where she is, only angrier. Well, he's angry too. His voice reflects his annoyance, but only a little. "No?"

Her face remained impassive. Like all the other times when she'd already made up her mind and not even an alien invasion could change it (Yes he invited her to join the Avengers before the Chitauri attacked New York, and yes, she said no. Thrice. She said she has paperwork to do. Even until now, he still couldn't believe it. Paperwork! She chose paperwork over working with some of the coolest people in the planet?) "No."

He tries to get her to look at him, but she refuses to meet him halfway. Still, he wants to understand. "Why?"

The sadness that weighs down Coulson's question catches May completely off guard. His disappointment with her is as clear as day, and her mask of stoicism nearly slips because of it. "You always lose your objectivity whenever Skye's concerned."

His finger jabs into the direction of the stairs leading to the basement where Skye's at. "So you'd rather deal with the crisis yourself, that it?"

"You're a hypocrite, _Director._" The way May enunciates Coulson's rank didn't sound respectful at all. It's more like an insult. "What is the first thing that you did when you learned about what happened to her?"

"That's not—"

"You stormed into a suspected Hydra stronghold all by yourself." May says. "You're the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., for christsakes!"

"May…"

"Do you even remember what you told me?"

"I—"

"You told me that you will crush them. That you will make them pay for everything that they did." Even until now, May could still hear Coulson's voice inside her head, repeating those words to her countless of times. "You lashed out, and it almost got you and a bunch of other agents—not to mention innocent civilians killed!"

"It was a reckless move, yes, but I got what I needed all the same. I now know how to take them down."

"No, you lost control. Just like you lost control with all that alien crap." Her anger is seeping through the cracks of her armor. "You lost control then, what makes you think you wouldn't lose control now?"

"I never lost control, May!"

"Skye is the living example that you did."

Her response came out as a whisper, but it felt more like the worst punch in the gut he could ever receive. He opens his mouth, and closes it again. The startling truth pours over his head like a bucket of ice water. He tried not to think about it; even spent an impressive amount of time telling himself that it's all Hydra, but if May thinks—

May regretted what she said the moment her words left her mouth, yet it is already too late to take them back. She straightens her shoulders, signaling the end of that particular part of their conversation. "I had Andrew see Skye again. He recommends that she should be taken out of active duty. Indefinitely."

The hurt on Phil's face is still there, and she could tell how grateful he is for her deft topic change. "I expected as much. But do you think it's the right call?"

"It's not the wrong one." May says. "We have to face the facts. She's changed. Whether we want it or not, if we put her back in the field, she'll always pose a danger to others and to herself."

"I'm sensing a 'but' here."

"But… Skye already lost a lot—her parents, her childhood…Trip. Hell, she's even questioning now if she's still human." May reasons. "Being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent is the only thing she has left. Can we really take that away from her too?"

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**Reviews?**


	19. The Gun

"Do you have it?" Is the first question Skye asks Hunter when he comes back to her room the next day.

He looks at her in mock offense. She's aware that he does these things for a living, right? "Of course I do, love." He raises the small bag he's holding. "Here you go, as promised."

Skye holds out her hand to take the bag, but Hunter pulls it away a little before she could reach it. "You wouldn't use this on your lovely head once I turn my back, are you?"

Though startled by the bluntness of his question, Skye quickly nods. "That's not my job."

He cringes. She really thinks he's that cold blooded?

She sees where his mind went, so she backtracks. She can't afford to have him change his mind. Not right now. "I know that what I'm asking you to do is not easy."

"Understatement of the year, love." _Your team will eviscerate me if I even touch a hair on your head._

"But it's a precaution." She said. Her eyes are glistening slightly against the light. "If things get out of hand, I still need you to be there."

"Yeah." He scoffs. "To shoot you in the bloody head."

She grabs the bag from him and looks away. Her hand ghosts through the outline of the gun he'd 'borrowed' from storage for her. Things are going according to plan so far. "I couldn't do it on my own."

He senses her hesitation, and he takes that as a good sign. At that point, he'd gladly take whatever silver lining she could offer. "The gun is yours."

She takes a deep breath and musters a grateful smile for him. "I know. Thanks." Then she notices the weight. It's too light. "But where are the rounds?"

"I'll bring them to you soon enough." Hunter skittishly replies. "You don't need them yet anyway."

Skye sighs. She can't exactly argue with that without sounding a tad suicidal, which she isn't. Not unless necessary. "Of course."

He dug inside his pocket and pulled out a pair of familiar looking devices. "But, I took the liberty of getting us one of these ear thingies. Figured we might need it."

She shakes her head. She pushes his hand back. "That is not necessary."

"It is to me." Hunter shoves the earwigs into her palm. "We should treat this one like all other missions. Can't exactly escape this place without at least talking to each other."

She nods hesitantly. Fair point. "Fine. Have it your way."

"And if you need to talk…" Hunter hesitates. "… no matter how trivial you think the matter is—"

"I will." Skye cuts him off with a smile. She finds the mercenary's attempt at being friendly and his obvious discomfort because of it quite endearing. "I promise."

"Well, with that being settled," Hunter gently pats her shoulder. "Give me a couple of weeks, alright?"

Her hands tighten slightly around her weapon at that. She looks up at him. "Couple of weeks?" She knows that they need to plan ahead, but she's thinking around two days. Max.

"Yeah." He says with a shrug. "Besides, if I am to take you anywhere, first I need to learn how to fly a bloody quinjet."

"I'm not sure if I stay here that long..."

"Sure you can." He says, a tight smile fixed on his lips. "But you know that we can always think of something else, right? Tell the director, perhaps… I'm sure he could always…"

"No." Skye says hastily, shaking her head. "We'll stick to this plan. I'll wait a few weeks if I have to."

"Alright, then." He turns his back to leave. God help him. He's already dangling way beyond his improvisation rope. He's gotta tell someone about this, and soon.


	20. The Protector

Coulson watches the video feed outside Skye's quarters with a frown. Hunter has been in and out of there at least three times today. Something's up. Anybody with a common sense could tell that. The question is what the hell could that possibly be?

Half an hour later, once Coulson is certain that they're alone, he gruffly grabs the mercenary to a relatively deserted corner of the base. He half pushes him, half drags him, really. Once they're in the clear, and to show the Englishman the seriousness of this particular meeting, he gives him the most threatening glare he could muster. He even attempts to channel his close friend and confidante by offering Hunter his own version of her infamous stare. He thinks it'll make her proud. "I think it's time for you to tell me what's going on."

Hunter barely holds back a wince at his tone. He scans the room cautiously, admittedly fixating at one crevice to his right a second far too long. The black thing there could easily be a camera. He squints at it. Well, it could be anything, really. He can't be too careful, though. Not when he's most certainly about to do something behind the back of a person who can hack into cars of secret spy agencies without breaking a sweat—not to mention, without even needing a laptop.

After a beat or two, Coulson finally takes pity on the guy and pulls out a frequency jammer from his pocket. "Talk."

The former mercenary knows better than to ask why Coulson has such device just sitting idly by inside his pocket. Nonetheless, in that particular moment, he's just relieved that he does. "Thank god." He exhales. It's the first real breath he's taken in a while.

"You better have a pretty good explanation as to why you've been having suspiciously numerous visits to my agent's room."

Oh good, now Coulson's giving him the paternal stink eye. Why is he even—

God, wait. _Him and Skye?_ Of all the crap going on in the base right now, that's what most concerns him?

"I'm not going to tolerate this kind of behavior, Hunter. She is in a very vulnerable state right now, and you taking advan—"

Hunter stops Coulson before he could make this conversation any weirder than it already is. "My god, sir, here I am doing something more selfless than what I'm comfortable with, and the first thing that comes to your mind is I am taking advantage."

"Hunter." The way Coulson says his name eerily sounds like a threat.

Hunter scoffs. "Please, she's like my kid neighbor who's gotten hotter over the summer or something."

Coulson's eyes narrows dangerously into very thin slits.

Hunter quickly backpedals before the SHIELD director could find more reasons to strangle him. "I'm kidding." Not about the hot part though. Because interested or not, Hunter still knows how to appreciate beautiful women.

But to the mercenary's utter disappointment, Coulson's stink eye does not waver. If anything, it only becomes more threatening.

_Oh, you can't be serious._ "Well, this is very enlightening." He says with a frown. "I'm glad to hear you have such high opinion of my self control." He knows how and when to keep his junk in his pants, thank you very much. And geez, it is Skye, for godsakes. She's like his baby sister.

"Talk, or so help me god—"

"Fine, fine!" Hunter waves his hands in front of him, as if he's trying to manually dissipate the director's unfounded animosity towards him. "Geez, can't a man gather his thoughts around here anymore?" He mutters under his breath.

After a beat or two, Hunter finally talks. "Don't tell her I told you any of this."

Coulson arches an eyebrow, but eventually (and thankfully) nods.

"I mean it, sir. She made me promise not to tell anyone. Especially you." He says. "She made it very clear that kill me fourteen different ways if she ever finds out how much of a rat I've become."

"I have this plasma gun in my office, Hunter, and believe me, I know exactly how it works." Coulson snaps. "Just spit it out."

Hunter swallows hard. Bloody hell. These SHIELD people really are something. No wonder where his ex-wife has gotten her fangs from. They should be very well prepared to give him a hefty monetary compensation for all the emotional turmoil this whole fiasco is causing him right now. "She wants to disappear. I'll pilot the quinjet… help her escape. Things like that."

His eyebrows arch a little higher at that. "Escape? From whom?"

"From you guys." Hunter says as a matter of factly. "Might have something to do with the incident with our very tall, dark, and handsome engineer?"

Of course she's still guilty about Mack. It's Skye, after all. "Where does she want to go?"

The mercenary shrugs. "She said it's the last place you wanted to go."

Okay. That's vague. But he does have a few places in mind, Tahiti, for instance. "Then what?"

"Then, she wants me to kill her."

Coulson came so close to grabbing the mercenary by the collar and slugging him at that. It's a miracle he's able to compose himself in time. "Say that again?"

Hunter spreads his arms despite practically seeing the smoke coming out of Coulson's nose. "Kill her, shoot her in the bloody head, you know?" He makes a shooting gesture to his forehead for emphasis and fires. "Poof."

"And you said yes?" Coulson asked, incredulous.

"What bloody choice do I have? If I said no, it's more likely that she'll find some other way to do it." He reasons. "Better have me than risk having a more willing party, eh?"

"She thought you'll shoot her."

"Guess me shooting her with an ICER couple of days ago gave her the idea." Hunter says off handedly. Then he remembers the incident with Creel. "Now that I think of it, I had actually shot her twice now."

"Wait, days ago?" Coulson questions, taking a step closer. "You shot her days ago?"

_Oops._

Unconsciously, Hunter runs a nervous hand on his face. His face is still raw because of May's fist the other day. He hopes his slip up wouldn't earn him another. A steel fisted tag team of sorts is certainly the last thing his face will be appreciative of. "What I'm trying to say is, she believes I will, so I'm playing along. I'll delay her real plan as much as I can."

"Her real plan." The director repeats. "And what exactly is her _real_ plan?"

"Well…" He shrugs. "Maybe. I was _really_ kind of hoping that you'd know." He replies. "Because as brilliant as I may seem to be most of the time, that's just as far as my knowledge goes about this particular matter."

A few glorious moments later, Coulson finally collects himself. He takes a measured breath. "Alright. Okay. _Okay._"

"So what now, sir?"

He stares Hunter down. "Before everything else, let me get this clear. Under no circumstances will you do anything that would directly or indirectly compromise Skye's safety, do we understand each other?"

Hunter gapes at him. "Do you people all think that simply because I am a mercenary, that automatically makes me a heartless psycho killer?" He holds out his hands. "Um, wait, hold that thought. Of course you have such low opinion of me already. You work in the same organization as my one and only demonic hellbeast of an ex-wife. For all I know she's already poisoned you lot with tons of misconstrued notions about me way before I even set my foot in here. Whatever ludicrous story she told you about me, let me tell you, none of those have the slightest basis of truth."

Coulson merely crosses his arms and stares at him impatiently.

"—but I guess you are not… interested…" Hunter stammers. "'bout that."

"Bobbi vouched for you," Coulson says. "…and _so far_, you haven't given me enough reason not to trust you."

He isn't sure whether he should take that as a complement or an insult. The jury is still out. "I am not going to like what you're about to say next, am I?"

Coulson tilts his head. "Your ex-wife did tell me that you have great instincts."


	21. The Dispute

**A/N: All mistakes and typos are mine. **

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Coulson seeks out his right hand woman at first opportunity.

"Good, you're here."

May heaves an impatient sigh when he continues his incessant pacing despite her presence. "Something on your mind?"

Trepidation seeps out of Coulson's every step as he paces back and forth in the threshold of his memorabilia-ridden office, gathering his thoughts. May, as usual, watches silently, nothing akin to emotion betraying her features.

The director, however, knows better than to buy her impassiveness. No matter how much worry is brewing inside him at this moment, he bets May's mama bear personality could easily outmatch it. She's a worrier, a worse worrier than him even-she is simply too good at hiding it.

He walks on. May rolls her eyes.

"We have plasma drills that can do that, you know..." May flatly states.

Coulson momentarily halts on his step and snaps his eyes towards his friend in confusion. "Huh?"

"Stop pacing." She clarifies.

"Will you ever stop being so calm all the time?!"

"And what, join you in digging holes into the floorboards with my incessant pacing?" May asks. "I think I'll pass."

He glares at her."She asked Hunter to kill her if she gets out of control, Melinda."

May didn't even need to ask who he's pertaining to. She just knows.

He is aware that Skye is not in a very good place right now, but he never figured it to be this bad-that she felt hopeless and miserable enough that she even considers ending her own life. "How can I miss something like this?"

Coulson crashes down onto his chair, face almost crumbling in dejection. The weight of carrying SHIELD on his shoulders is beginning to wear him down, now more than ever. "How can I be so stupid?"

A pained look briefly crosses May's face. "Phil—"

His eyes blazed in warning. If his friend dares say that everything isn't his fault, he is going to shoot something. "The alien writings inside my head brought us there. _I _brought us there!" His fist meets his desk with so much force May thinks he actually left a dent on its surface.

"Are you seriously going down that road?"

He lets out a mirthless laugh. "You said it so yourself: if it weren't for me, she wouldn't be like this. She wouldn't be in so much pain right now!"

May is clearly taken aback by his remark. "Hey, that's not what I said."

"But it was what you meant!"

"Blaming yourself isn't going to solve anything." May says. "Skye is already drowning in that rabbit hole, Phil. I can't have you jumping in it, too."

Just as Phil was about to yell at his friend in frustration, the door in his office bursts open without warning, startling both agents.

"Skye!" A panicked Fitz suddenly appears, rushing towards Coulson's desk without as much as glancing at the person he almost literally plowed. He only missed a collision with May by a mere fingerbreadth. A few more to the right and he might've crashed right onto her. "Skye, uh, she's…"

"Skye's what Fitz?" Coulson asks, standing up. His gut twists. "What happened?"

"I-uh." Fitz stammers. "She and Hunter… they, uh…"

May's heart starts pounding mercilessly at the incredibly alarming picture Fitz's expression is painting inside her head. "Where are they?"

"They took a… er." The two could see how hard Fitz is trying to communicate. He is repeatedly rubbing his face and jumping up and down in exasperation. "Quin, uh-plane! They took a plane. A plane. They took a plane. They're leaving!"

Coulson and May didn't even have to be told twice. They run outside as fast as they could, both praying to high heavens that everything's not be as bad as they feared.

It was.

It is May who reacts first. "Morse!"

Bobbi is lying on the ground outside the cage, unconscious. She sees her just as Agent Grayson is dragging her to one side of the hallway, away from the tremendous foot traffic the commotion is causing inside the base.

"What's going on, Grayson?" Coulson asks immediately.

"Agent Skye and Hunter are trying to take a quinjet. Sir, I didn't think she did it on purpose but I saw Skye throw Morse across the room without even touching her. It was like a fast moving forcefield or something, sir." The agent answers quickly. His face has grown a couple of shades paler. Whatever he saw, it really scared the shit out of him. "Dr. Simmons just ran past me. She said she'll try to stop them. They're—"

A roaring airplane engine puts their conversation into a halt. A startled expression fills Phil's face whereas May's became clouded with apprehension. The two immediately ran to the direction of the sound, both silently hoping that it's not what they think it is.

Simmons almost crashes towards them as the last door towards the bay opens. Her eyes are wide in panic. "You got to stop her before they take off!" She says frantically. "Skye disabled all the other planes. Once they're airborne, there's no way for us to chase after them. I can't talk her down! I'm running towards the control room right now, maybe I can stop them by manually disabling closing the gates up above."

"Where is she, Jemma?" May asks frantically.

As if on cue, Phil sees the object of their worries from the corner of his eye. He spots her on the far end of the airstrip, practically scrambling to get inside one of the planes. It's already slightly off the ground, and she's barely hanging on to the partially opened ramp.

"Skye!" He runs towards her before he could stop himself, using only his arms to block the stream of air bursting out of the plane's engines. What the hell is Hunter doing? This is not the plan.

"Skye, stop! Let us talk about this please!" Coulson yells. But then, much to the director's annoyance, the plane suddenly revs. Warm air from the aircraft's engines solidly collides against his body. The force of it was strong enough to throw him a couple of yards away. His back hits one of the other parked planes with a painful thud.

Skye is almost overwhelmed by the urge to run to Coulson's aid, but she fears that if she gets to close to him again, she'll do more damage than good. So instead of stopping, she merely doubles her efforts to climb inside.

In her attempt to get inside the plane as quickly as possible, she completely misses her S.O.'s stealth approach from behind.

She catches her unprepared that the young agent is already crashing towards the ground before she actually realizes what happened. She grunts in pain when she finally lands.

When she opens her eyes, she sees May towering over her, looking very disappointed. And pissed.

Very, very pissed.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" The Cavalry hisses.

"May." Skye mutters with a soft groan. "You don't understand. I cannot do _this _here."

"Skye—"

The ground starts grumbling, and it is clearly not because of the roaring of the quinjet not ten feet away from her. "I can't stay."

"Then I'm gonna make you." May tells her sternly. She jumps into a fighting stance. "You know I can."

"I can't fight you, May." Skye murmurs. However, as she says it, the former Rising Tide hacker is already halfway through sweeping the older agent's legs from under her. It catches May completely off guard, causing her to fall and let out a soft curse.

"I'm sorry." Skye mutters.

Before May could even start to regret teaching her rookie how to perform that particular move, she again sees Skye running back towards the plane.

_Damn it._

"Get in!" Hunter yells. He had barely a week to master the controls and learn to fly the plane. He could only hope that he could make it fly to wherever they're going without crashing onto anything.

"Working on it." Skye mutters, but mostly to herself. It'll all be easier if there are no swarms of bees practically crawling underneath her skin.

"Hey, Skye, watch ou—"

Hunters words gets drowned in Skye's ears by the sudden burst of pain that rises from the back of her thighs. Her knees buckle, momentum sending her tumbling forward. She grunts.

_Shit.__ Of all the agents in the base, why does it have to be May?_

"I need you to stand down." May orders her sternly.

"No." She replies in between pants, her hands are tightly fisted on the concrete, as if willing it to stop all its subtle shaking. Her organs are shifting. Her every vein is in chaos. She can't control it. It wants to come out. She's a monster. "The longer I'm in here, the more people get hurt."

When she turns to face her S.O., however, it is a barrel of an ICER that greets her.

"Don't make me use this." May warns.

Skye wanted to say something, but her breathing is beginning to get too labored. She inches slowly backwards, sliding herself on the ground and putting as much distance between her and May as she could. "May, please. I need to leave."

"And do what?" May asks. She might look as pissed as hell, but still she keeps the gun aimed only at her shoulder. "Let you deal with this alone?"

"Yes." She finally responds. She slides further back. "Alone." Where she would not be running the risk of hurting the people she cares about.

"Well, that's too bad." May pulls the trigger.

Skye only wanted May to stop, to keep the ICER bullet from dragging her back towards the only place where everyone she cares about could get easily killed because of her. However, when she instinctively raises her hands in defense, a wave of inexorable force suddenly bursts out from her palms. It throws May a good twenty five feet away from her, and she collides with a heap of unfolded parachutes on one side of the base. The roof explodes above her, casting a tremendous amount of dust and debris all around.

"Oh god." _Monster monster monster._

"Get in the bloody plane, Skye!" Hunter screams. Skye hears nothing.

"Bloody goddamn fornicating hell!" Hunter curses as he puts back the plane on level ground and steps out of the cockpit towards to where Skye's standing.

"Skye." He calls out, trying to get her to look at him. "We need to go!" The wiser side of his brain keeps on nagging him that staying on the same plane with someone who can level an entire city is not a very good idea, but then again, he doesn't really have a choice, does he? If he leaves her here, chances are the entire base, not to mention the pretty huge town above it, will be blown to bits. She already sent Bobbi flying a good ten meters with her mind because of a panic attack, for pete' sake.

He may be a mercenary, but damn it, he's not a self-centered mercenary.

Seeing that there's no chance whatsoever that Skye would recover from her petrified state anytime soon, Hunter finally decides to act accordingly. He half drags, half carries Skye towards the plane.

Then they take off.

* * *

**I've been very busy with work lately, hence my sporadic updates. Sorry. Comments?**


	22. The Freefall

They've barely reached cruising altitude when Hunter feels the entire interior of the plane start to shake. He may be a newbie in terms of flying quinjets and the like, but even he could tell that the commotion happening right behind him is not caused by a mere nasty turbulence. The skies are too bloody clear. The winds are too subtle. Hell, there's not much wind anywhere at all.

"Are you okay back there, Skye?" Honestly, he's beginning to doubt his decision of not backing out of his promise. He was a pretty smart guy before all these SHIELD fiasco has taken over his life. Case in point, his ex-wife. If he haven't met her, he is probably somewhere in Greece right now, basking in the wonderful Greek sun, certainly not presently trembling in his boot while praying to all the deities he could name that their flying tin can of a ride won't plummet back to the ground at terminal velocity.

"Sorry..." Skye's voice is too soft that he almost misses it altogether. "I didn't mean to..." She falters. Swallows. "Bobbi, she-."

"She's a big girl. I'm sure she's going to be fine." He cuts her off. Although he is well aware that Bobbi has long been convinced of him being a perpetual liar, he badly needed her not to make him one this time. He sincerely hopes his kick-ass hellbeast is okay.

Skye doesn't look convinced. "You must hate me for dragging you into this."

_Yeah. Maybe...God, not really._ For some reason he can't find it in him to hate her. Not even a little bit. He's the kid sister he never had. "A promise is a promise, Skye." Hunter tells her, frowning at the controls in front of him. "Just focus on not sending our small metallic deathtrap crashing at warp speed back to earth, alright?"

She's clenching her fists again, perhaps trying to control the vibrations as much as she could. Much to the former mercenary's relief, the shaking stops immediately.

He musters a tight smile. "Starting to get a hang of it, eh?"

Skye shakes her head and leans dejectedly onto her seat. She clearly does not share his optimism. "I hurt May, too."

Oh no. They can't talk about that right now. Not if they both wanted to land back to level ground in one piece. Thinking quickly, Hunter changes the direction of their conversation. "Have you thought about where you want to go, love?"

"No." Skye replies. From the way her shoulders are slumped, it is obvious she can't stop thinking about the damage she's done. "Do you think she's okay?"

"When wasn't she fine? I'm sure she's okay." Hunter lies. That explosion on base was pretty massive. But then again, if he braves to tell Skye that, their plane's explosion will probably be pretty massive, too. "She's May."

Skye the beginnings of a tear on the side of her eye. "You are not that much of a liar, are you?"

Hunter has nothing else to say after that. It's not as if he has any experience dealing with people with powers before. He would have better chances if she were an infuriating hellbeast from the underworld. He has sufficient amount of practice in that department to last at least three lifetimes, maybe more.

They traveled through the next fifteen minutes without speaking. The humming sound of the quinjet's engines isn't enough to soothe his nerves. Is this the calm before the storm? He inwardly shudders at the thought.

Then suddenly, Skye's trembling words pulls him out of his reverie.

"How populated is the ground below us?" There is a shift in her tone that he could not place. Her voice is too frazzled for Hunter's liking. It also didn't help that her words aren't exactly that reassuring. There are only a handful of reasons why his friend would ask a question of that sort, none of which favors him landing this plane safely back on the ground in one uncrumpled piece.

"I don't think anyone one lives in here and for another two hundred miles or so, why?" He tentatively replies, trying so hard to keep his panic at bay. _Pleasedon'tcrashpleasedon'tcrash._

"You have a rifle with you right?" She asks in a small voice. Hunter detects much anxiety in the way she speaks that could not possibly mean anything good. He gives the bag beside his seat a fleeting look.

"Only if absolutely necessary, Skye." He tells her before she starts to get any ideas. "It isn't."

When she lets out a low groan, Hunter simply pretends not to notice. But a beat of silence is all it took before another groan escapes from her lips.

"We need to stop." She says. It is scarcely a whisper.

"Huh?" At that, Hunter musters his courage to fully glance at his passenger.

His heart almost stops beating at what he sees.

Skye's off her seat, kneeling in the middle of the plane. Her teeth clenched so tightly he fears she could literally crush them together. She's holding on to her head like it is being torn from the inside out. Every part of her is shaking yet no sound manages to escape her lips.

Hunter could see how much she's trying so hard not to cry out, how hard she's trying to rein in whatever force it is within her that's trying to get out.

A loud curse rushes out of his mouth.

It is one of the most horrifying sights he's seen his whole life; it is a miracle that he is still able to get a word out that is not a swear word. "God, um, wait." Shitshitshit. "Hold on a little, okay?" He tells her as gently as his terrified self could permit. He could not recall any other time when he had to put so much effort in acting so coolly. "I am already gearing the plane to land."

The walls at the back of a plane are rumbling. It weirdly reminds him of the sound of a tin can being decimated by a trash compactor.

He used to love the sound of that pesky little thing.

"Open the ramp, Hunter." She begs.

"We're still at ten thousand feet." Hunter explains. He could sense the urgency in Skye's voice, but come on, he couldn't just make the plane drop to the ground like some bird which just had a stroke mid-air. He can hardly fly the thing, for crying out loud. "Just a little longer, Skye."

"I think I need to jump." Skye gazes up to look at him for the first time since they took off. She's not simply scared; she's downright terrified. "I don't want this plane to crash us both."

Hunter's tight smile wavers when she finally puts a voice to his innermost fears. She's really going to crash the bloody plane.

"Five thousand feet now, love, you're doing great, really..." He hopes to god that whatever tracker Coulson implanted in him is working perfectly fine because he is not sure how long he's going to manage the situation at hand.

"Hunter, please!" She begs again. "Open the fucking ramp!" Huge bruises are starting to form in both her arms, like islands of blood trapped just under her skin. He wishes he isn't seeing any of it now, but he doesn't actually have a choice. He can't afford to take his eyes off her for fear of her doing something completely drastic, or maybe even heroically stupid.

Skye's hands are now on the floor of the plane, grasping for some sort of purchase that seems to persistently evade her. "Stopping it-it hurts so much."

An alarm rings somewhere above Hunters head. He thinks he's going to hurl. "Five hundred feet. We're landing any second now." He announces as he flicks a switch somewhere on his left side.

When he turns his head again to check on Skye, however, she is no longer slumped on the floor just as he last saw her. He doesn't even had the time to ponder as to why his blood had suddenly ran cold because the next thing he knows, she's already standing near the end of the plane, pushing the huge red button on the wall.

She's manually opening the ramp.

"Wait, Skye, no!" She can't jump this high up the ground. Not without a parachute. She'll only get herself killed.

Hunter scrambles to reach for his ICER, a difficult task since at the same time; he's also disentangling himself from the quinjet's elaborate set of seatbelts. He checks the screen. Three hundred feet.

_Jesus._

He curses again as the ICER slips from his hand and slides traitorously under the empty co-pilot's seat beside him.

She jumps out.

"No!" The former mercenary forcibly extricates himself out of his seat and lunges forward. He's reaching, and reaching, and reaching...

His hand misses her leg by merely a fingerbreadth. "Skye!" He screams on the top of his lungs as he helplessly watched his colleague free fall like some inanimate object. He's too late.

This is not the plan. This is not the plan at all.

Coulson is going to kill him.


	23. The Backup

**Hello my dear readers, see, this story started as a oneshot. My prologue was supposedly the entire story. To my utmost surprise though, this story began writing itself. This is my longest AoS fic thus far. Currently, I'm writing ch33/45-ish. This is the last chapter that occurs prior to the events of that prologue. I took the liberty of posting the said prologue again for continuity purposes. It's italicized, so if you want to skip it, feel free to do so. I'll be posting the next chapter in a few hours.**

**PietroLives: I love you. There, I said it. Thanks for your wonderful review. You really made my day. **

* * *

The quinjet has hardly landed when Hunter practically storms out of it himself. A huge explosion followed seconds after Skye's rash decision to jump off. It, she, created a huge crater into the dirt.

He tries to hear past the thunderous roaring still resonating in his ears. Though the said undertaking is already bloody difficult as it is, it is nothing compared to him trying to ignore the intense gnawing he feels in his gut as his mind plays back the last couple of minutes. Couple of months really. How many friends of his have died under his watch lately?

Idaho... Izzy.. Sk-

He stops himself right there. No. He's heard the stories. The woman had survived certain death at least once in the past. There's no reason why there won't be another.

But goddamn it. He should've taken the possibility of her jumping off the plane into consideration. He really should've.

_Please don't be dead, Skye. _

A big cloud of dust is moving, circling, at such an unsettling speed in a cliff near to where he had landed. He scans the area frantically for any signs of life, for any indication that his friend may have survived the fall. He sees nothing but dirt.

Jesus, he maybe he indeed got her killed.

"Skye?!" Hunter calls out to his earpiece, still hoping beyond his common sense that Skye didn't just jump to her death as he feared.

"Skye?"

He only hears some low crackling sounds from her end. "Skye, woman, come on! Do you copy?" Whatever power she possesses, now is probably the best time for them to work right. Maybe she was able to conjure a seismic parachute of some sort before she fell.

"Skye, if you can hear me, then you better start answering me!"

Right on cue, a sound of roaring car engine suddenly comes up from behind, startling him. It zooms past him and straight into the cliff before he even had the chance to gape.

No, scratch that, it didn't just zoom past him. It flew past him.

The bloody car was flying.

* * *

_"Kill me." Skye murmurs, half wondering if everyone in her team could see her. She strongly wished they couldn't. The thought of Fitzsimmons… of May, seeing her like this, of hearing her say those words—those are not the words she wanted them to remember her by._

_Her eyes are tightly shut, but she knows—she knows exactly how much damage she's caused… and still causing. She does not have to tear her eyes open to see the darkness inside her. Not if it is already clawing its way out of her without any regard for the wreckage it could leave behind._

_Agent Lumley was right; wherever she goes, death follows._

_Though he clearly failed to mention that she'll be the one causing them._

_"Not an option, Skye." Coulson yells at her over the almost ear-splitting sounds of huge boulders bursting into specks of dust around him. He steps forward towards his distressed agent, barely able to remain upright given the huge tremors from the earth where he stood, his ICER held tightly on his hands._

_Skye's eyes burst open when she hears Coulson's voice. Oh god. He should not be here. He should not be anywhere near her. She'd kill him. "Don't come near me!" she warns, and takes a step back. A strong tremor liberated itself as she took that one step. Coulson falls on his knees._

_Blinding fear fills hear heart as she saw her boss almost fall to his death, into the cliff she inadvertently creates out of nowhere._

_Desperation was clear in her voice as she spoke again. "Lance," she calls out, knowing fully well where the former mercenary is located, and can hear her through the earwigs she's still wearing. "We already talked about this. Take the shot!"_

_"He would not do it." Coulson counters immediately. "Never planned to in the first place."_

_When the hot piercing pain indeed does not come, Skye's panic rose significantly. She should have thought that their boss could easily get Hunter to flip. She could tell from the get-go that the former mercenary wasn't totally on board with her plan, but the need to believe that he was felt much easier for her to accept._

_"He told me where you'd be." Coulson said, evading another piece of rock that explodes near his general direction. "Let's go home, Skye."_

_She thinks he misses a very important point. There is no way she could go back. There's no home for her to go back to. She already turned it into a pile of rocks. Or did he forget? "Coulson, this is not something you can save me from."_

_Coulson briefly wonders how on earth he manage to stay standing up, given all the earthquakes his young agent emits, but decided not to dwell on it. He fights back a small smile, "you cannot stop me from trying." He already saved her once; he could definitely do it again._

_Skye's nails are digging into her palms, practically drawing blood, but she hardly notices the pain. Her whole body trembles with the quakes she creates, and she could not stop them. She could not stop anything._

_Why couldn't they get it? She's a lost cause. She's beyond saving. "I don't want to hurt anyone anymore."_

_"I know." Coulson tells her. "So let us help you."_

_She lets out a strangled sound. Wave upon wave of inexorable force leaves her core, obliterating the earth surrounding her like it was nothing. "I'm sorry, AC."_

_"It's gonna be okay, Skye." He tells her, sounding less like the director of SHIELD and more like the paternal figure she had grown to love. For a second she considers how much better her life would have been if he was the one who turned out to be her father, not Cal. Maybe it wouldn't turn out as shitty as it is now._

_She closes her eyes once more. Sighs in resignation. "Yes it is."_

_Coulson's breath gets caught in his throat as he hears and senses the finality in his agent's voice, and before he could do anything, the worst of his nightmares comes to life in front of his eyes._

_A sidearm slowly finds its way to her temple. Even at a distance, he could tell that what she holds in her hands is not a weapon designed to merely incapacitate. It's designed to kill. "Put that gun down, Skye." He begs._

_Regardless of the tremendous amount of debris surrounding her, Coulson could still see how hard she's trying to control her trembling hand. "You cannot save me, AC," she tells him, "…but at least let me try to save all of you."_

_"No, no, no Skye… no!" He scrambles towards her, towards the hacker he chose to trust more than anything in this world. By some cruel hand of fate, Coulson just couldn't close the distance between them. "No!"_

_"I will save you." She mumbles softly, almost like a plea. Maybe it was._

_Coulson's knees nearly buckles at her words. Doesn't she know that by doing what she's about to do, she'll be accomplishing the exact opposite of what she hopes to achieve? "Do not scare me like this, Skye!"_

_"I'm scared, too." She looks down at him from where she stood and whispers, her eyes indeed full of fear. It reminded him just how young this agent really was. She has already seen too much, suffered too much, given her age._

_"I do not want to end up like him." She mumbles softly. Like her father. A monster._

_Watching her, Coulson could tell that her fear is not of what's about to come. Its not fear of having her skin pierced once more by an unforgiving bullet, inflicted this time by her own hands. Hell, it's not even fear of dying._

_The fear that he saw… it was fear of herself, of what she can do._

_Of what she had become._

_And by god, Coulson has never seen Skye that terrified before. Not when she woke up distressed and confused days after she was almost shot dead by Quinn. Not after the home she wanted to protect went down in flames in the hands of Hydra. Not even after he told her that her roots could possibly be not of this earth._

_He struggles to stand, to fight the tremors that keeps on pushing him down on the ground. His once pristine shirt now in tatters because of the huge amount of force coming from her, while his skin burns at the number of scrapes he's sustained dodging every projectile that comes his way. "Ending your life is not taking that fear away, Skye."_

_She shakes her head minutely, forcing tears to finally flow freely from her eyes. "It's not my own fear I'm trying to take away, A.C," she tells him, her voice the faintest sound heard amidst the chaos. She saw him, the way he looked at her the first time he realizes that she's no longer the Skye he first met. The way his eyes widened at the realization that it was her that caused the earthquakes—that she was the epicenter of all the chaos around them._

_Coulson almost screamed at her how wrong she is to think like that. She has no idea what his real fear is. She has absolutely no clue that by doing what she's doing right now, at this exact moment, she's making that very fear come to life._

_He fights his way through the torrent of rocks around her and breaches the inner sanctum of waves that seem to encase her. He had no idea how he was able to do so, but for some reason, he wanted to believe that it was because she lets him to. He could feel it. "Me… the team—our team—we are not afraid of you Skye."_

_She hesitates. Loosens her rigid grip on her weapon slightly. His pleading eyes almost made her put the gun down, almost made her want to save herself as a favor not for her own pitiful self, but for him._

_And then she remembers. The friend she had worked with, had laughed with, had fought with. One of the bravest men she has ever met. The friend who died thinking that he has failed to save her._

_She then spots Coulson not ten feet away. Her heart seizes in her chest for all of the possible implications these hasty turn of events could bring. He would not stand a chance, being that close to her. "No…"_

_The team leader's proximity rekindles a particularly upsetting memory she much wanted to forget. The friend she had lost, transformed into stone by some ritualistic cosmic crystal she could barely understand, while her so-called gift turns him to dust._

_Suddenly, she's back in that underground temple again. Closed off from the world around her, trapped and unable to move, standing completely still while she watched someone she cares about disintegrate in front of her eyes. All because of her. Another was dead person because of her._

_She will never let that happen again._

_With renewed conviction, she raises her gun once more. Holds the barrel so close to her head, much tighter this time. Its cool metal is pressing firmly against her skin, making her shiver._

_"Do not let him die for nothing!" Coulson yells, desperation clear in his voice. He's grasping at straws now. "Trip did not die for nothing!"_

_Trip. She could not even say his name anymore. She could not even think of him without seeing him turn to stone over, and over again._

_Maybe he did fail to save her after all._

_"Tell them I'm sorry." She mutters gently. Her face seemed calmer this time. As if she already found her peace. "This is the only way."_

_Coulson felt as if his heart is imploding on itself. "No!"_

_"I'm sorry."_

_A shot rings out. She falls._

_The world never felt so still._

* * *

**All mistakes and typos are mine. Thank you for reading. **


	24. The Preacher

"Tell me, Mr. Teichmann, what is the one thing in life that you desire most?" Dr. Klein asks with a small smile, the pen on his hand momentarily pausing on top of his clipboard. He's been a psychologist for thirty seven years; he's met countless patients, and even had his fair share of psychopaths and sociopaths. But there something about the man in front of him that raises the hairs at the back of his neck on end. There's something sinister about his eyes that greatly unsettles him.

The heavily set man in a suit takes a careful sip from his cup before answering. The question surprised him slightly, but he doesn't let it show. "It's better for you not to know any of them, doctor."

Dr. Klein's eyebrows arch curiously. He can't find any visual cues that could tell him what this new mysterious patient of his is feeling. The man is as blank as a sheet. "Why do you think that?"

Waving a dismissive hand, he replies vaguely, "Knowing it hasn't helped anyone before, believe me."

"Well, there is a first to everything."

"Indeed, indeed." Mr. Teichmann agrees. He leans closer. "But what use would knowing one's desire be if someone else can distort them with a mere flick of a finger? It's a waste of effort for something so futile."

A look of sheer confusion fills the psychiatrist's features. "Excuse me?"

The man shoots the doctor a peculiar grin and stares at him pointedly. "If I ask you what your desires are, what would you say?"

Unnerved by the question, Dr. Klein's back stiffens. "This meeting is not about me, Mr. Teichmann."

"What is your deepest desire, doctor?" The man presses.

The good doctor isn't sure what drove him to answer, but he finds himself responding. The way his patient gazes at him sends countless shivers down his spine. "Legacy."

His reply piques the man's curiosity. He hums. "Interesting."

Dr. Klein fist unconsciously loosens around his pen, sending it toppling over his knee and towards the floor. "I want my work to mean something." He adds. "So my family will be proud of me."

"So your family is important to you?" The patient asks.

Very. "Yes."

Mr. Teichmann sighs, and makes clucking sound with his tongue. He sees his point, understands it even. But he also sees the hypocrisy beneath it all. So he also finds it utterly nauseating. "Honestly doctor, I never liked people like you."

The doctor's face morphs to an eerily blank expression.

"Nobility." Mr. Teichmann spits out the word as though it has offended him deeply. "Right up the alley of the self-righteous—you all refuse to see anyone standing below your moral high horse."

It may have been a trick of the light, but Dr. Klein could've sworn that there are tendrils of green smoke coming out of his patient's fingers. They are dancing, swimming, swirling.

His patient goes on, "…you refuse to see the people you step on, the bystanders you violate."

The doctor blinks, and it the next thing he knows, the green fog surrounds him all over, entering his ears, his nose, his mouth, his every pore. He feels very drained.

"…you are a disgrace to your kind, abominations. Charlatans pretending to be decent human beings even when in truth, they are way worse than the men they consider their enemies."

The doctor's forehead begins to throb as thousands of unrecognizable images swarms him mind. He couldn't fathom what any of them mean; the confusing flashes are threatening to turn his gut over. Suddenly, the said images turn brighter, and brighter, and brighter. It blinds him.

"You will want freedom from your marriage." Mr. Teichmann says in a voice that can only be likened to those of a preacher's. He is nowhere to be seen, yet he couldn't let his presence in his head get any more known. "You want to kill your wife because she is not really your wife. She is a monster plotting to kill you once your back is turned. You want to kill your children because they are not really your children. Like your wife, they are monsters, too. They are all monsters."

He's preaching his words to him, and he doesn't know why, but the doctor knows that it is the truth. Dr. Klein mechanically repeats his words. "They are all monsters."

"Yes, yes." The suited man nods, very much amused of his doctor's laughable state. He hasn't expected it to be this easy. "That's why when you get home, you need to kill them. All of them."

"I will kill them." Dr. Klein robotically repeats. "All of them."

"And when the job is finished, you will write a note, detailing everything you've done, up to the very last bullet you send blasting through your wife's skull."

Dr. Klein repeats his words exactly as he dictates.

"Then, once that is over, you will go to your lovely kitchen, pick the sharpest knife you can get your hands on, and slit your throat from ear to ear."

"I will pick the sharpest knife and slit my throat from ear to ear."

Mr. Teichmann leans forward, and smiles slyly. "So now, Dr. Klein, can you tell me again, what is the one thing in life that you desire most?"

* * *

"You didn't have to do that." An older man says offhandedly while keeping his eyes fixed on the newspaper he's reading. He is sitting alone on a couch in the visitor's lounge, looking like he is exactly where he belongs. He isn't.

"Dr. List." The man who just called himself Mr. Teichmann says in acknowledgment the moment he spots him. "This is a surprise."

"I highly doubt it, Marcus." Dr. List replies without missing a beat. "We could've easily sent some of our people to Nora Klein's house to perform the necessary termination procedures, yet you choose to go through this path again."

Marcus chuckles. "As if my skill set doesn't tickle your fancy."

"You do know me well." Dr. List grins as he picks up his half-emptied cup of tea. "With the way you're going, you'd be advancing through our ranks faster than our enemies could cut off our weaker heads."

Weaker head, you mean. "I couldn't say I shed a single tear over the Kraken's death." Daniel Whitehall was not a true leader of Hydra. He is nothing but a wrinkly old man who became too obsessed with his little alien artifacts that he's become blinded about everything else.

No wonder a bullet in the back had killed him.

"Why would you?" Dr. List asks. Whitehall's death opened doors for Marcus to take control of their North American installations. "…when his death did nothing but give you the reins in this part of our world?"

"That is true." Marcus notes. "But tell me, List, what's stopping me from killing you and taking your place in our organization?" He may have increased his standing in Hydra, but still, there are a lot of people who outrank him. A lot of heads he has to decapitate. Dr. List is one of them.

The aging doctor turns the page of his newspaper and shrugs. "I do have the resources to find your son." Resources that you don't have. "And of course, you do owe me."

Marcus could do nothing but frown. He has a point. The man has made a failsafe agreement with someone outside their organization that if anything bad happens to him, if he gets killed or even mind controlled by him, Marcus' long lost son will be the one paying the price. "You don't have to remind me."

"Why shouldn't I?" He asks. "When it is the only thing that stops you from killing me?"

* * *

**The team's reaction to Skye's decision to shoot herself will be explored more in the next chapter. Don't worry. This story is, first and foremost, Skye-centric. I won't kill her here. Or maybe I won't kill her just yet. *Evil laugh* Reviews?**


	25. The Cage

**My previous chapter may have confused a lot of you (thanks PhantomKnight88 for pointing it out :-)), and for that I apologize. I was trying to introduce a new character back there... and perhaps I did it rather poorly. Um, just take note of the new guy's powers and shelve it for a while in your memory palace. He'll reappear some time later. **

**Here's the next one to make up for it. I swear, this would be my last chapter for today. I seriously need to study now. More to come in a couple of days. **

* * *

"I cannot believe she tried to do something like that." Coulson paces back and forth outside the quarantine chamber that temporarily houses their newly-empowered agent. "It's stupid! And careless!" He mutters, "And totally stupid."

May watches him carefully at the corner of her eye; not tearing her gaze from Skye's sleeping form. "I agree."

"She shot herself, May." He tells her, as if restating the fact would make the thought easier to swallow. "In the head."

"Yes she did." She deadpans.

Coulson rubs his face in frustration. He is not even close to finishing his tirade. "With a real gun."

"Uh-huh."

Coulson halts on his steps and shoots his friend an incredulous look. "Will you stop agreeing with me?"

She raises her eyebrows. "Are you done?"

His jaw tenses slightly. He almost says no but thinks better of it. He sighs. "Yes."

They both stood silently for a moment, staring at Skye's pale face as she slept on, unmoving. Fitz has definitely outdone himself this time. The clear glass that houses her was enough for them to see her clearly, but it was also reinforced with vibranium so it wouldn't shatter when she wakes up and unintentionally releases her power again. This does not change the fact; however, that what they'd place her in is nothing different than a cage.

It's his job now is to make sure that this won't end up being a permanent thing.

"Good thinking, what you did." Coulson says.

"I was not the one who modified the gun." May tells him, not interested in taking any credit whatsoever. "Thank our two scientists upstairs."

"But it is you who thought that we would need to change her gun in the first place." Coulson insists. When May told her what the team did the moment he got back, he was a little disappointed that he did not come up with that plan himself. But then again, not in a million years did he consider Skye to be even a tiniest bit suicidal. "Real gun on the outside, ICER bullets on the inside. Gotta say, I'm impressed."

May says nothing. Another wave of silence fills the room.

"How—" Coulson closes his mouth the moment his question began leaving his mouth. All this time she's harboring self-destructive thoughts under his nose, and he didn't even notice. Sure, she's willing to have Hunter shoot her if she gets out of control, but he thought that's just a very last option kind of thing. "She's—"

He rethinks his words. Regroups. "How did you know that she's—" Coulson hesitates, and is relieved when May follows exactly where his train of thought leads.

She tore her eyes from Skye and narrows her eyes at her friend. "Suicidal? She's not." She sighs, clenches her hands behind her back. "She's selfless. And she blames herself. That's never the best combination."

He could not agree more. Skye may need some serious talk soon. Knock some sense into her stubborn head. And maybe hug her and never let go. He's still having a difficulty accepting the fact that his hacker agent and surrogate daughter just shot herself in the head.

In her freaking head!

Sensing where Coulson's mind went, May fully turns to him. He may try hiding how shaken he was by Skye's actions—hell, even she was shaken—but she knows the new SHIELD director better than that. "She's confused. Overwhelmed," she reasons. "Sometimes that's enough to make even the good ones tick."

Coulson lets out a sigh. "I could not begin to imagine what it's like to be in her shoes right now." He could easily count on his fingers the number of truly good people he knows in this world. There's no doubt in his mind that Skye is one of them. She does not deserve this. Any of this. "Must've terrified her."

"I think what concerns her more is how the team would react to the change in her. She's scared of scaring us away… of being rejected again. Like before."

He nods, understanding. The foster homes. Not being a good fit. That was her greatest fear. It still is. "Now I know why you are so eager to attack her before she left." He tells her. "To show how un-scared you are of her, you know, despite being aware that she could probably make your heart explode inside your chest. Unwittingly."

She shoots Skye a fleeting look before returning her eyes to Coulson. She draws a breath in, purses her lip. "If she's looking for rejection, she needs do so much better than throw me across the base."

He nods once more, chuckling. "When you grabbed her from the ramp, it was then when you changed her gun, was it?"

She crosses her arms and goes back to staring at her junior agent, confirming what Coulson just voiced out without saying anything. She hoped it was enough to end the conversation.

"But still, a little head's up about the gun would not hurt." Coulson tells her, unable to let go. "I almost got myself killed back there."

"No chance to." May replies flatly. "You left quite in a hurry."

He smiles. The first one he had in a while. "Well, I did make it there on time."

She bites her lip, deep in thought. So much for dropping the conversation. "Anyone who knows you would find it very difficult to kill you." You should get that by now.

His head momentarily goes back to when he was still obsessed with that alien writing, to a point of almost insanity. His memory of May's firm refusal to kill him if things go sideways is still clear as day. But then again, whenever the topic of killing him is brought up. a certain semi-Asgardian never fails to come to his mind. Too eager to kill him, that one. "You clearly haven't met Loki."

May's reaction is perhaps the closest thing to a smile she could offer. Her posture more relaxed now than it was in San Juan, when she came back to the bus carrying an unconscious Skye in her arms. "She would never kill you." May tells him.

He finds that comment laughable. Of course, consciously, Skye wouldn't kill him. She would never intentionally do that. But that's the thing. The vibrations she emits escapes from her even without her thinking. "She could though. I mean, make no mistake, my own safety was not much of a concern for me at the time, and I am willing to do everything I did all over again if that could save her, but come on May. Have you seen what she's done with the place?"

Her response is just as cryptic as the look she gives him. "Have you?"

* * *

**Comments? Suggestions? I'd love to hear from you. **

_Btw, for those of you who have read my NCIS fics and are still patiently waiting for updates, please forgive me for my extended absence. I am not planning to abandon any of them... it is just that Cote's departure (and now Michael's plan to leave) had been slowly siphoning all of my muse's energy. I'm still working on trying to nurse it back to health. I'm planning to rewatch some old episodes soon. Maybe they could revive my muse somehow. Wish me luck._


	26. The Microscope

Coulson is either hard to kill, or just remarkably lucky.

He had been staring at the aerial footage of the events of the previous day for god knows how long, but he still could not wrap his head around what he sees.

He spots Skye immediately in the video. The poor girl is surrounded by a force field-like-thing peppered with what he supposes are about three tons of rocks and debris.

And then he sees himself.

He thought he knew what was going on at the time. When people are faced with splitting boulders whizzing through the air—and straight to their faces—at five hundred miles per hour, they tend to remember a lot of details.

However, as it turns out, he did not get all the fine points right. He thought luck and agile reflexes were all the help he used to get to her, that he could still run at a decent speed and jump high enough to save his life. He was wrong. He was so wrong.

She paved his way.

Literally cleared his damn path.

He wouldn't even make an inch forward without disintegrating to dust if not for her practically making a path for him to walk through. Rocks were exploding around him, yes, but they are exploding away from him. Down there, it was impossible to see, but viewing things from above is another story.

"Feel like a fly on the windshield with the wipers on, eh?" Hunter cuts in, pausing the feed to finally get Coulson to turn and face him. He had been silently watching from behind, studying every second of video even though he thinks he'd already learned every important detail in it the first three times he saw it. Watching it unfold live, of course, was a very helpful supplement. "Packs a pretty mean earthquake, that one."

Too soon, Coulson thinks. But he sort of owes the guy so he lets it pass. For now. "Thank you for telling me what she's up to."

"I let you tag me like some wayward animal, the least I could do is lead you to somewhere useful." Hunter replies with a soft smirk. "Though I'm still a little sore she thought I would actually shoot her with a real gun. I may be a bastard, but geez, I'm not that kind of bastard."

The two both stared at the frozen screen in front of them, swathed in thoughtful silence.

"I'm not really sure what to do with this." The director admits, gesturing at the monitor.

Hunter merely shrugs. "Well, I would not advise showing that to her, for one." At least not yet.

"Agreed." Coulson nods.

"I haven't seen anything like it in my life." Hunter tells him. Coulson could not tell whether he's only saying that to make conversation, or if he is telling the truth. They live in an age when aliens descend the earth left and right, when super soldiers sleep for seventy years only to wake up without aging a single day. Who could tell what Hunter has or hasn't seen before?

"What will you do if you were in my shoes?"

"To Skye?" Hunter wonders why Coulson suddenly shows interest in his opinion when his experience with superpowered individuals is clearly much less than his, but the dude seems pleasant enough for him to give an honest answer. He shrugs. "The more rational part of me says that we shouldn't try to make her mad. She's evidently not hulk-smashing her way to anything—she's just… I dunno, smashing."

"And the less rational part?"

"I think no gun is more powerful than the person who holds them." Hunter says. "She just has to learn how to pull the trigger right."


	27. The Staff

**A/N: This chapter completes the story of some of the original characters I've introduced in Chapter 12. Please note that they are minor characters and their involvement in this fic won't affect the main plot that much. What's important here is the alien artifact they have. That thing (by now it should be fairly obvious what it is) will definitely play a major part in the succeeding chapters.**

* * *

Kyle Winston had never been this angry before.

Everybody is judging him, watching his every move. For every minute and every second of his goddamn life, all those bastards do is wait for him to slip… to make a mistake. To look stupid in front of everyone. He could feel their stares boring huge holes on the back of his head, foolishly assuming his cluelessness in all these. They all want to sabotage him, to put him down because they know that he is so much better than all of them combined. They are not as brilliant as he is. As cunning. He is willing to take huge risks, no matter what the cost. Unlike those coward Neanderthals, he doesn't care about the cost. The outcome will always outweigh everything. It is what's important in the end.

Long ago, he considered himself a peace loving man. Always ready with a smile, he never passes a single person without saying hello, or at least a lighthearted nod. People may say that being a professor at the university for fifteen years may have something to do with that, but he begs to differ. For every action, there will always be a choice. Will he wave at one of his students as she walks by him, or will he just shoot her in the head until her brain gets all splattered on the ground in a heap of mush? Will he pick up a pen that has fallen onto the floor and happily hand it to its rightful owner, or would he just stab him in the eye with it?

Choices, choices. There are always choices… and decisions… and problems and shit. Frankly he's starting to get really tired of choosing—of thinking. He just wants to act without stopping first to consider what should and should not be done.

To live dangerously, to act impulsively…

For once, he wants let go and follow his most primal instincts, ignore the societal norms… bash someone's face against the ground...

So that is what exactly he does.

"Please…" The man slumped facedown on the asphalt begs him. "I have a family. Please don't kill me."

Kyle scoffs. He buries his boot more deeply into the poor man's jacket. "Families only hold us back."

"I'll do anything, I swear I'll do anything, but please sir, I beg you, don't kill me."

"I heard you laughing at me." Kyle insists, his fists tightening around the silver staff on his hands. The inscriptions on it are burning against his eyes, a molten shade of oraange that shines brighter than the sun. "Behind my back, you're always laughing. You're no different than rest of them!"

"L-laughing?" The man asks frantically. He barely knows this psycho, how can he be laughing at him? "Why would I even do that? I have never laughed at you, I swear!"

"Do you think I like this?" Kyle's eyes turn wild as he gestures to himself. "That I asked for this to happen to me? That I wanted you to judge me?"

His pleas are slowly turning into hysterical screaming, and Kyle couldn't blame him. "What are you even talking about?"

As if on cue, police cars starts to gather around them. They slowly walk closer, hands raised as if to signify that they won't be a threat. "Put down your weapon, Mr. Winston!" One of them orders once they've reached a justifiable distance.

Kyle smiles. Suddenly, his reckless decision to make a spectacle in some intersection in the middle of town becomes his most brilliant idea yet. "I think we've finally got the audience we so badly needed, Mr. Duncan."

"I'm telling you for the hundredth time! I'm not this Duncan guy!" The poor man squeaks, then turns to look pleadingly at one of the policemen in front of him. "Help me, please."

Kyle leans closer to the man's ears and screams, "Lies!" He looks at the crowd gathering around them. "Can't you see how pathetic this man has become? Strip off his tenure, the accolades, and the unreasonable grants, and all that is left is this pitiable coward here, screaming for mommy to come and rescue him. Ladies and gentlemen, look at him! I'm doing you all a favor." Then, quicker than anyone could blink, he whirls his staff and slashes the man's head clean off.

"Kyle, no!" Maggie Winston screams in terror once she finally makes her way through the crowd. Everyone else is running away, everyone but her. She stands frozen in the middle of the street, eyes wide in shock at what she just witnessed her husband do.

Despite the haze of fury swimming in his eyes, Kyle spots his wife immediately. Unconsciously, he takes a step closer to her. "Maggie?"

Everything seems to happen in slow motion after that.

He sees one man in tactical clothes come out of nowhere, suddenly grabbing his wife by the throat, dragging her backwards, kicking and screaming. She struggles to escape, but even he could tell that the man is too strong for her. She's being forcefully taken into an idle dark van.

Kyle tries to run after them, but two more dark cars appear, blocking his path. More men come out. They are all wearing masks. A child screams from a distance. Gunshots roar.

Then, as if the world isn't chaotic enough, Kyle hears two canisters of smoke hit the ground with a resounding clang. Everyone on the road topple forward like ragdolls-men, women, children, uniformed or not, they all fall unconscious.

He knows that smoke. He knows that scent. He's been working on a labortory for so long, it'll be an embarrassment for him not to know. He tries to hold his breath, he tries really hard, but it was too much. It was all too much. He falls on his knees.

Then there was silence.

"Look what we have here." One of the men mutters tauntingly above him. All he could see is a man shaped darkness looming over him.

He feels weightless as he pushes himself to crawl towards where he last saw his wife. A chorus of chuckles mocks him, and he knows that they are all watching him, but he trudges on. His wife needs him. He almost makes it, but then as he grabs onto the rear end of the truck that has Maggie, a piercing pain unexpectedly erupts on his back, forcing him to tumble forward. His vision blurs further.

"It is confirmed sir." A voice, a man, mutters above him. He sounds like he's using a satellite phone, if the static he hears is of any indication. He steps on Kyle's head, forcing it to crush against the concrete so that he'd stop moving. "The alien artifact is here."

"Where did you…" Kyle rasps, his lips bleeding, "…where's my wife?"

"Shut up." The man yells at him, kicking him sharply in the face before he turns back to his phone. "It is the Asgardian staff, sir, and we have it."

Kyle crawls towards the man and grabs his leg. He's wearing a military boot. It has spikes. "W-where's s-she?"

Another kick. "Understood sir." The soldier pulls out his gun.

The sound of the first gunshot blasts through Kyle's ears. The pain that follows is sharp, but slow. He was hit on his back.

"You are a funny man, Mr. Winston." He says. "But you shouldn't have played with toys you know nothing about."

Little did Kyle Winston know that those are the last words he's ever going to hear.

* * *

**The team will reappear in the next one... which will be uploaded in a couple of minutes.**


	28. The Beginning

It's been eighteen hours, and Skye still hasn't regained consciousness. Coulson may hide it well, but May knows better than to let her friend's calm demeanor fool her. He's been unconsciously adjusting the watch on his wrist for the past hour and a half. And save for his brief stay in his office to watch the surveillance video taken from the quinjet Hunter has commandeered, he hasn't really left the observation area. Hell, he hasn't taken his eyes off Skye since she re-entered the room, and it was what, three hours ago?

"She's not going to disappear, Phil." May mumbles as she hands his friend a fresh cup of coffee. Bless Fitz for having the foresight to install a coffee machine in the room. She may not like coffee, but his former partner sure does. "She's going to be fine."

Phil stares up at her. "Will she?"

May's not used to being the more optimistic side of their friendship, but something tells her that for this case, she really has to exert a lot more effort into being one. "It's Skye."

Some other time, they both may think that that is reason enough. Skye is, after all, one of the strongest people she knows. But now, after what happened in that cliff, after what she tried to do, she's not so sure anymore. Not that Coulson needs to know that.

"I don't know, May."

"Why don't you take a break?" May asks. "I'll stay with her."

He shakes his head and gives her a sad smile. "I'm fine."

May just gives him the look.

She knows that he hates it when she does that, but she does it nonetheless. He sighs in defeat. "Okay. I must check on Simmons, anyway. She should have something by now." He slowly removes himself from his chair and walks towards the door.

"I'll call you if anything changes."

He nods. "Do that."

Sometimes she wonders if Skye is better off if they all just left her alone in her van all those years ago.

* * *

Two hours after leaving Skye's side, Coulson finds himself standing inside the lab. No one's in, if the dim lights are of any indication. He spots the digital clock on the far side of the room. It's only then when he realizes that it's already way past midnight.

"Sir?" A voice suddenly calls him from behind, startling him.

It's Jemma.

"What are you doing here so late at night?"

Coulson shrugs. "I could ask you the same thing."

"I couldn't force myself to sleep." Jemma admits. "I have been staring at the ceiling of my bunk for the past hour, trying to put my mind to rest. I can't, obviously." She chuckles half-heartedly. "But then, out of nowhere actually, I remembered one of the philosophy lectures I've attended while I was still an undergraduate student. Well, it's not exactly similar, but somehow, I couldn't think of another explanation more fitting. For Skye's case, at least."

Coulson nods. "Tell me."

"For the past few days after San Juan, what has Skye been desperately trying to do?" Simmons asks. "What does she badly want to achieve?"

"Control." Coulson replies quickly.

"Precisely." Jemma agrees. "When most people think of control, what they really mean is just conscious control. But control, in reality, is governed by two things—the conscious, and the subconscious."

The director's eyebrows furrow. "So what are you trying to say?"

"I think that while her conscious mind is still stuck trying to make sense of everything that's happening to her, her subconscious tries to take over. That's why strong emotions like fear or guilt could easily trigger her." Jemma began; hope clearly brimming from her eyes. "I posit that if we could find a way to bridge the two, I mean, elucidate her conscious mind on what exactly she can or cannot do, we can help her harness control. We could finally shift the command of her seismic capabilities from one to the other."

"And how do you suggest do we do that?"

The excitement in Jemma's face dies and it is suddenly replaced with trepidation. "Sir," she begins, "what are your thoughts about possibly dying a very painful death?"

* * *

**A/N: I've reached the point in my fic (the chapter I'm currently writing, not the next one to be uploaded) where I need to decide whether to put a ship or not. Do you guys want me to add in a ship here, or should this story remain shipless? The ship won't be driving the main plot though, so the story could survive with or without it. Thoughts?**


	29. The Doppelganger

**Hey guys! I'm back! Sorry I've been gone a couple of months. I took an exam a week ago and I had to study for it for a while. Btw, English is not my first language so please excuse any spelling/grammatical errors. Agents of SHIELD is not mine.**

* * *

**Previously:**

_"Sir?" A voice suddenly calls him from behind, startling him. __It's Jemma._

_"What are you doing here so late at night?"_

_Coulson shrugs. "I could ask you the same thing."_

_"I couldn't force myself to sleep." Jemma admits. "I have been staring at the ceiling of my bunk for the past hour, trying to put my mind to rest. I can't, obviously." She chuckles half-heartedly. "But then, out of nowhere actually, I remembered one of the philosophy lectures I've attended while I was still an undergraduate student. Well, it's not exactly similar, but somehow, I couldn't think of another explanation more fitting. For Skye's case, at least."_

_Coulson nods. "Tell me."_

_"For the past few days after San Juan, what has Skye been desperately trying to do?" Simmons asks. "What does she badly want to achieve?"_

_"Control." Coulson replies quickly._

_"Precisely." Jemma agrees. "When most people think of control, what they really mean is just conscious control. But control, in reality, is governed by two things—the conscious, and the subconscious."_

_The director's eyebrows furrow. "So what are you trying to say?"_

_"I think that while her conscious mind is still stuck trying to make sense of everything that's happening to her, her subconscious tries to take over. That's why strong emotions like fear or guilt could easily trigger her." Jemma began; hope clearly brimming from her eyes. "I posit that if we could find a way to bridge the two, I mean, elucidate her conscious mind on what exactly she can or cannot do, we can help her harness control. We could finally shift the command of her seismic capabilities from one to the other."_

_"And how do you suggest do we do that?"_

_The excitement in Jemma's face dies and it is suddenly replaced with trepidation. "Sir," she begins, "what are your thoughts about possibly dying a very painful death?"_

* * *

"So I'm just supposed to walk through here-" Coulson asks as he carefully enters a wide cylindrical chamber surrounded by glass. "-stand inside this scanner device," he peers at the gadgets surrounding him with as much as apprehension someone who's about to be converted into a holographic simulation in a couple of minutes, "or whatever this is?"

Apparently, Simmons created this whole algorithm involving various emotional and environmental stimuli that they could use to analyze Skye's triggers. And Jemma, bless her, got it in her head that he's the best candidate for trigger number one.

Well, May was actually her first choice. But after that whole Agent 33 fiasco, Simmons figured that the older agent wouldn't be so keen on having her face duplicated again soon. As temporary as it may be.

The entire set up has Fitz's signature all over it, too. For one, he designed and earthquake-proofed the huge simulation room where Skye's currently in. He also made every piece of tech they have inside it-from the interactive wall panels, to the wireless physiologic data scanners, to the shock-resistant screens-you name it, Fitz built it.

Coulson may have already said this a million times before, but really, he is lucky to have Fitzsimmons on his team. He is lucky he was able to get to them first.

"It's nothing but a simple holographic scanner, sir."

Still, Coulson can't help but feel slightly terrified of the prospect of being trapped inside a technologically advanced glass cage. If he could recall correctly, the last time he's been standing close to one of these, he ended up harpooned in the chest by a megalomaniacal alien. Nothing happened really. He just sort of died for a bit there. No biggie. "If you say so."

Jemma offers him a reassuring smile. "Sir, it's going to be fine."

"No, it's not that." He tries to smile at her in return, but fails miserably at it. "I trust you. It's just-"

Simmons simply nods. She understands. "We are not a hundred percent certain that this will work for her, but still, don't you think we owe it to her to at least try?"

Ever since the incident in the cliff, Skye has been in continuous sedation. It has been a week since then. Sedating her for prolonged periods didn't sit well with any of the team's members, but they found no other options. Whenever the sedatives are titrated down and Skye comes to, everything starts out okay. But every time someone—a friend, a stranger, anyone—enters her room (hell, even it's just for a quick glance), the entire room begins to shake again.

So perhaps Fitzsimmon's plan is indeed their only option.

Now, Skye has been staying for almost three days in her new room. The walls remind him of the cage, just that instead of dull gray, the hexagons on the walls are brownish. The only means of communication they could use, or at least, the only means that she and her powers allow is via the huge sceen on the right side of the room. Food is being delivered to her by some magic window in one of the walls. Of course, it's another one of Fitz's.

Among the team, May is the one who's incessantly asking Skye if she could come in. She adamantly declines her requests every single time though, every movable fixture in the room punctuating her refusal.

Back inside the chamber, Coulson tries to lift one of his arms. "Um," he begins, movements halted halfway by a series of multicolored wires that Jemma has been sticking on him, "Thank god Hunter opted to stay outside. I look ridiculous with these."

"Don't be so quick to judge Director Coulson," she replies, giving the last of the sticky things in his shoulder one reassuring tap, "if we're still in the academy this would be far from fact, they may even call this device theoretically beautiful."

"So there's zero chance that one of your high precision lasers will accidentally chop my gorgeous _head_ off, you know, theoretically?"

"Skye told you about that?" Simmons face flushes in sheer embarrassment as she gapes at her incident with Agent Sitwell back in the hub is something she'd rather forget. And to her disappointment, again and again, Skye finds away to remind her of that little mishap. Honestly, she's beginning to doubt if hacker friend will ever let her live that one down.

"Didn't figure you for someone who prefers people about your height but heavier than you."

Face beet red, Simmons wordlessly makes her way back out the machine. It takes exactly two seconds before she finally manages to gain back her composure. "Ready, sir?"

Swallowing back a laugh, Coulson musters a straight face and takes a deep breath. "Here goes nothing."

The moment she makes a swiping motion somewhere on the glass encasement, light beams suddenly hit his entire body from all directions, scanning him from head to foot. A pinging sound erupts somewhere above Coulson and he flinches, gaze nervously trailing after its source. "It's supposed to do that, right?"

"Of course, sir. Absolutely normal."

His weight shifts uncomfortably from one foot to another."Any idea how long this would take?"

"Um, maybe five to six minutes," she says, "give or take."

Indeed, after a couple of minutes, Coulson finally sees Simmons nodding approvingly at the figures on her tablet. She makes a final swipe on the thing. "And were done!"

Coulson quickly disentangles himself from the wires, exits the chamber, and walks straight towards where Simmons is. He peers over her shoulders and onto her handheld device. "What possible problems should we expect from this point on?"

"Unless Skye discovers that what she's seeing is not the real you but a mere hologram of you sir, we would not be having any issues."

"Well that'd be a pleasant change." He says. He wishes he could share her optimism.

"So sir, are you ready to meet your virtual doppelganger?" Jemma asks Coulson. Her fingers are poised to swipe something on her tablet at her boss' signal.

Coulson nods. What the hell. They might as well try. "Do it."

* * *

"Skye?" Hearing Coulson's voice causes Skye to wake with a jolt. She sits up quickly, eyes wide in surprise.

"It's fine. It's just me." He assures her. He takes a step closer.

"Oh no, wait..." Skye frantically says. "Wait, shit! Damn it." She scrambles out of her blanket. "Stop!"

He takes another step.

She sinks further back to the far side of her bed. Her panic is causing her pillows to tremble slightly. "Are you crazy? You can't be here. Get out!"

"I'm still the director of this agency, Skye." He replies with a tight smile. "You can't tell me what I can or cannot do."

Shit. shit. shit. "I almost got Mack killed! I almost got you killed!" By then even the bedside table is shaking. And it is getting worse. "I don't know why seeing people keeps on setting this damn curse off, so you have to leave! You know I can't control this!"

"Oops. Sorry." He takes four steps closer to Skye's bed, not looking the least apologetic. For once, he forgoes wearing a suit for civilian clothes. If Skye isn't so panicked, she'd probably tease him about it. "You don't have a choice."

Seeing him in jeans feels weird, but Skye doesn't actually had the luxury of time to ponder much about it. "Choice? This is not about choices, Coulson!" She screams, her back hitting the wall beside her bed. "This is about you being stupid!"

"We'll I am here now, so you might as well deal with this stupid man before you." He grins as he makes an inward-outward motion with his hands. "Breathe. Do careful breaths, okay? Just as what May taught you."

All the room's lighting explodes, sending the room in utter darkness.

"Oh god." Skye groans at her boss' stubbornness, while her eyes are starting to tear up in fright. She doesn't want to hurt him.

"Breathe, Skye, breathe…" Coulson instructs her. "Don't mind me being here. Mind youself. The room is shaking and you're the only one who can stop it."

"If I know how to do that, I wouldn't be stuck here in the first place goddamn it!" She snaps. "Get the fuck out of here, Coulson!"

To Skye's horror, Coulson simply sits on the floor with his arms crossed. He tilts his head and stares at her in challenge. Like he's quietly telling her that if she doesn't do as he says, she wouldn't like what would happen next.

She grits her teeth and tearfully drags her eyes towards the ceiling. Slow and careful breaths leave her lungs as she forces her own body to cooperate with her for once in her life.

_Stop it. Stop it. Stop it._

"Okay, you're doing great." Coulson notes. Fortunately, Skye wasn't looking at him when a piece of furniture flies straight through his head. She'd freak out for sure if she was. "Just keep breathing slowly. Focus on calming yourself."

Skye groans as she valiantly refuses to look at her boss. "Shut up, Coulson, you're not helping!" If her powers don't end up killing him, _she_ will. With her bare hands. How can he be so careless? "God, DC, I could really strangle you right now."

Phil smiles. Maybe this could work after all. "That's the spirit."

* * *

**I'm on duty tomorrow, so perhaps the next one will be up 48 hours or so from now. Thanks for reading!**


	30. The Deception

**There's a spoiler for episode 313 in the end author's note. Skip it if you haven't seen the said episode yet.**

* * *

It has been a week since Coulson first tried the Holographic Ushers towards Gifted Stability or H.U.G.S. (Fitz is the one who named it, not him), and so far, everything is going smoothly.

Well, maybe calling the first three of those seven days _going smoothly _is stretching it quite a bit, but still, there have been some notable improvements. Relative improvements, but improvements nonetheless. For one, Skye had already managed to pull herself out of the constant need for sedation. Secondly, though during her entire stay in the containment unit alone she had broken a total of twenty two glasses and twelve plates, it is still worth noting it has been seventy two hours her last 'destructive' incident. She hasn't broken—hell, she hasn't shaken—a single thing since. Something changed four days ago, and whatever it was, Coulson is very grateful for it.

He thinks it's finally time to try something new.

"If I am going to allow the non-holographic you anywhere near Skye sir, you have to at least take this." Simmons insists as she shoves an ICER on his hand.

"You've seen how much progress Skye's had this week, Jemma." Coulson tells her. "I'm sure I won't be needing this."

"I am not telling you to use it, sir." Simmons says. "I trust that Skye won't do anything to hurt you. But if she ever finds out in the future that I let you in there without much of a weapon to defend yourself with, she'd skin me alive."

"Simmons, I'm sure—"

The glare that Simmons sends him leaves no room for protest. If May ever sees her, she'd definitely be proud.

"Fine." Coulson says with a sigh while he steals a quick glance at the small screen above his head. Skye's sitting on her bed, shoulders relaxed, reading a book. He tucks the gun in his pants, out of sight. "Just open the door."

The said door opens, revealing a very short hallway. It leads to the door of Skye's room. He hates it that they had resorted to such crude measures in handling her newly acquired abilities, but what else can they do? They know no other means of containing powers of such magnitude. Maybe they could do that before, when they're all members of a big shady international spy organization with secret bases and secret resources in all secret places, not all of which can be pointed to in a map. But now, right now, they cannot afford to have a lot of options. Literally. It's a miracle they were even able to pull off building this secret bunker underneath a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific in such short notice.

He knocks on her door. "Skye, can I come in?"

"Sure, go ahead." Skye earmarks a chapter and excitedly tosses the book on her bed. She looks up. "Hey, DC, guess what—"

He enters the room.

The grin drops off Skye's expression the moment Coulson fully comes to her view. Her face blanches to almost paperwhite.

The look he sees on her face sends a wave of panic inside his gut, but he tries his hardest not to let it show. "Hey," She flinches as he takes a step. He immediately halts. "hey, what's wrong?" Did he do something?

Damn it, she probably saw the gun tucked in his pants. He shouldn't have let Simmons sway him into bringing something like that.

"It's really you." The horror in her voice is clear.

"Uh," His eyebrows furrow in confusion. "of course it's me. I promised to visit you yesterday, didn't I?" Coulson carefully says. He doesn't understand. Why does she look like she's suddenly afraid of him? "What's wrong?" He scans his own body for anything that could elicit that sort of reaction from her, but he sees nothing different. There is no way she could know that he has an ICER strapped on his waist. Aside from that, there's nothing new on him. Well, aside from—

Coulson sighs. He is torn between feeling like an idiot and being pissed at May for training Skye so well. How the hell did she even manage to figure it out? His hologram looked as real as his own body, it almost fools him from time to time. "You knew."

She nods.

"It was during the fourth day, was it?"

Though Skye is starting to breathe heavily, the room remains perfectly still. "Can we not talk about this now? This is not really a good time."

Coulson merely shrugs at her warning. "I beg to disagree." For once, the room seems to be in agreement with him. "You're doing great."

"Sir, please. You are here in person, and nothing is shaking right now. Take this as an improvement and go. Just…" He hears the hesitation in her tone as she fights mightily against it. "You can come back tomorrow, I promise, but just go."

"Really?" The elation in Coulson's voice is too clear to miss. "Tomorrow?"

"This much control is all I could manage right now." Skye replies quietly. Actually, the deafening noise that always seems to attack her ears hasn't bothered her for some time already, but she'd rather not risk it. "I mean it sir, really, you can come back tomorrow."

"You do know how proud of you I have been since this whole thing started, right?" He asks her, a proud grin indeed decorating his lips.

Skye gives him a tight smile in return. "I know."

"Okay." The director clasps his hands together. "See you tomor—"

A shrill alarm sound suddenly bursts out, cutting Coulson off. The lights in the entire facility, including Skye's room starts blinking red.

For a split second, Coulson and Skye's eyes meet. Both agents know what that warning means. And it is nothing good.

There's an intruder on base.

* * *

**Oh my god, have you seen the latest episode?! This is the first time I ever got teary eyed over anything on network television. The first time! Good job AoS. But really, do you really have to hurt my baby and throw her against the ceiling like that? (Btw, I'll definitely be missing Huntingbird in AoS. Especially Hunter's sass). **


	31. The Intruders

**Have you seen the promo for 3x15? My God, it looks freakin awesome. Can't wait!**

* * *

**Previously...**

_"This much control is all I could manage right now." Skye replies quietly. Actually, the deafening noise that always seems to attack her ears hasn't bothered her for some time already, but she'd rather not risk it. "I mean it sir, really, you can come back tomorrow."_

_"You do know how proud of you I have been since this whole thing started, right?" He asks her, a proud grin indeed decorating his lips._

_Skye gives him a tight smile in return. "I know."_

_"Okay." The director clasps his hands together. "See you tomor—"_

_A shrill alarm sound suddenly bursts out, cutting Coulson off. The lights in the entire facility, including Skye's room starts blinking red._

_For a split second, Coulson and Skye's eyes meet. Both agents know what that warning means. And it is nothing good._

_There's an intruder on base._

* * *

Simmons' worried voice crackles through the intercom. "Sir?"

"Jemma, are you alright out there?" A hundred different scenarios are already running through his mind as he speaks. Damn it. This is the last thing he needs right now.

"The alarm came from the south entrance. Hunter is en route, but he's coming from the west end. How should we proceed?"

"Take an ICER with you, find Fitz, and proceed to the panic room now." Coulson calmly responds. A bunch of movements could be heard from the other side of the intercom, until finally, a soft whoosh brings everything else into a lull.

Coulson looks at Skye, whose face had an unreadable expression plastered on. He doesn't want to leave Skye alone, yet he knows he has help Hunter in dealing with whatever threat they have outside. "You gonna be okay right here?"

"I thought The Playground is in a very secure location. How did anyone find us?"

A grim look takes over Coulson's features. "We are not in The Playground, Skye." He murmurs. "We are in a bunker in the middle of the Pacific. Only Hunter and Fitzsimmons are here with us."

Skye's face visibly pales at the news. That explains the humid, salty air she smells. If they are the only ones in this place, then that means whoever the intruders are, they didn't come here to attack SHIELD. They targeted this particular place for a reason.

They are here because of her.

Her lips trembled at the realization. "They are after me."

"Or me." Coulson says with a small shrug. He doesn't seem like he's buying his own words. "I still am the director of our agency."

As all the lights in the compound start to flicker uncontrollably, Skye couldn't stop the sarcastic retort that quickly comes out of her lips. "Yeah, I'm sure they went all the way to_ my_ containment room to go get you."

Horror washes onto Coulson's face at Skye's choice of words. This is most definitely not a containment room. Skye's not some sort of animal that needs to be contained. "Training facility." He corrected with a glare. "After we deal with the threat, you better prepare yourself agent, because we are going to have a very long chat about your very poor choice of words." He eyes Skye sternly. "It may get lou—"

Then all of a sudden, Coulson disappears. Disappears! A man in a beige trench coat materializes in his stead, making the director's words forever lost in ether.

"Hello, Skye." The man says with a small smile. "It's nice to finally meet you."

The man—whoever he is—he doesn't have eyes.

She screams.

* * *

"Where did you take him?"

The eyeless man makes a dismissive gesture with his hand and offers her another easy smile."That is not the right thing to ask. Your team would be going nowhere. You, however—" He takes a careful step towards her. She takes a step back. His smile falters minutely upon seeing her reaction, but ultimately, he decides to give her some space to gather her bearings. He couldn't really blame her for being scared. Having a flat patch of skin for eyes tends to elicit that sort of reaction from people. "You do not have to be afraid of me. I am not going to hurt you."

It's a miracle Skye even manages to hear his words over the thunderous roaring of her own heart. "Right." Her eyes dart around the room. He is blocking the only path for escape. God, she seriously hopes he didn't hurt any of her team mates.

"We are here to help you."

_Christ._ There's more of him? "We?"

As if on cue, a loud buzzing sound coming from the door momentarily distracts Skye. The light flickers some more.

The door slides open, revealing two more strangers. Skye finds herself backed up against the farthest wall. She's badly outnumbered.

"Is this her?" The shorter of the two newcomers asks. He's a young man, possibly late teens or early twenties. Attractive face, green eyes. His face is brimming with curiosity upon the sight of her. It reminds her of a puppy which had just been handed a new toy. "She's pretty."

"What do you people want with me?" Skye hisses. People? Are they even people?

The eyeless man takes a step closer. Both of his hands are raised non-threateningly. "You are one of us."

"One of you?" She asks with a scoff. God, eyeless or not, this guy is super creepy. "I don't even know what you are."

"We are called Inhumans." He says without missing a beat. As if that is enough of an explanation already (it is not).

"Well around here, I call you nutjobs." Skye snaps.

Green eyes chuckles at that. "Good one, newbie." With a huge smile, he walks towards her.

"Stay where you are!" She screams in panic and holds out her hands. He halts. "I don't know who you are, or what you are, but if you take another step—"

"What are you going to do, hurt me?" He teases. He moves one more step closer to her, completely ignoring her threat. "I don't think you can."

"Xavier, don't taunt her." The other non-eyeless man speaks for the first time. His hair is blond. Take away the wariness, and she'd probably say he has kind eyes.

"Why not, brother?" The teen asks with a slight tilt of his head. He steps towards her some more. A smug grin is plastered on his face. "It is not as if she's capable—"

"Wait, stop!" His older brother yells suddenly. "No!"

The warning, however, came too late.

A wave of transparent force shoots out from Skye's palms, landing straight on the Xavier's chest. Although it wasn't strong enough to throw him across the room, it did manage to make him fall on his ass. He lands with a loud thud. He groans.

"I'm warning you three, back off!" She screams.

Relieved by her abilities cooperating with her for the first time, Skye attempts to repeat the action when he spots the other two of her visitors attempting to come to Xavier's aid. However, before she could land one on the eyeless man, a stinging surge of heat swats her hands off target and pins them against the wall beside her head. She winces.

"What… the hell?" She steals a quick glance on her trapped arms.

Are these—

Lightning bolts?

She is pinned on the wall by some goddamn lightning bolts?!

"Stop!" Xavier's brother yells. "Nobody is hurting anyone."

Can nobody else see that there are lightning bolts literally emerging out of his palms? Seriously?

"Except she's already hurt me." Xavier complains as he rubs the soreness off his butt. "Goddamn it, woman," he looks up to Skye and chuckles. He seems very amused of what she did, "you have no chill."

"Xavier, just zip it." Lightning guy snaps at Xavier without actually looking at him. His gaze is fixed on the woman he has pinned against the wall. He asks Skye, "If I let you go will you attack us again?"

Skye stares back at him defiantly. "Probably."

The eyeless man merely smirks, amused by the exchange. He seems to admire her candor. "Release her, Lincoln." He says. "She wouldn't hurt us."

"Don't be so sure, blindy." The pressure against her arms does not wane. In fact, it tightens even more around her wrists. "Ow!" Shit. Now, who has no chill?

The eyeless man touches the electric guy's shoulders. "Lincoln, please."

"I don't trust her, Gordon." Lincoln mutters. "Her power is too dangerous."

Power? She doesn't seem so powerful to her. She'd barely thrown the other guy on his ass, and she's already exhausted. But then again, she did made a lot of things explode recently.

Still, she'd hardly call that _power.._.

"Yes, but so is yours." The blind man reminds Lincoln.

"She's unstable." Lincoln reasons.

"Hey!" Skye protests, clearly slighted by the insinuation. Sure, she may be a little bit out of control at the moment. Perhaps even out of her depth. But unstable? Can't he see who's trapping who against the wall right now? (With some freaky electrical thing, she might add…) Whoever this guy is, he has some serious issues.

"Can you just teleport us back like this?" Lincoln asks. He is still not releasing his hold on her.

Teleport? Skye's eyes bug out. She feels like she's trapped in some badly written Sci-Fi movie. "Wait, what now?"

"I won't move us anywhere until you release her." The blind man calmly replies to his pal before moving his gaze (gaze?) towards her. "I'm sorry for surprising you like this. I know that this is a lot to take in."

"No kidding." However, since she's not in a very reassuring position at the moment (See: arms), Skye decides to play along. For now. "Okay, okay." She wiggles her hands against her magic restraints. The moment he lets her go, she'd run. She doesn't care where, she doesn't care if she could, but she has to do something. She can't just let them teleport her away to god knows where. She lies, "I won't try anything, I promise."

The eyeless man then stares her captor down, which is quite an impressive feat for someone who has no eyes. "Lincoln."

The whizzing sound stops. So did the most of the vibrations around her. Her ears are ringing. It's very disconcerting at first, but hey, at least she's free now. Kind of.

The blind man smiles. She's been released, but for some odd reason, she's still frozen in place. What did they do to her?

"Shall we?"


	32. The Search

**_Previously..._**

_"Can you just teleport us back like this?" Lincoln asks. He is still not releasing his hold on her._

_Teleport? Skye's eyes bug out. She feels like she's trapped in some badly written Sci-Fi movie. "Wait, what now?"_

_"I won't move us anywhere until you release her." The blind man calmly replies to his pal before moving his gaze (gaze?) towards her. "I'm sorry for surprising you like this. I know that this is a lot to take in."_

_"No kidding."She tells him. However, since she's not in a very reassuring position at the moment (See: arms), Skye decides to play along. For now. "Okay, okay." She wiggles her hands against her magic restraints. The moment he lets her go, she'd run. She doesn't care where, she doesn't care if she could, but she has to do something. She can't just let them teleport her away to god knows where. So she lies, "I won't try anything, I promise."_

_The eyeless man then stares her captor down, which is quite an impressive feat for someone who has no eyes. "Lincoln."_

_The whizzing sound stops. So did the most of the vibrations around her. Her ears are ringing. It's very disconcerting at first, but hey, at least she's free now. Kind of. _

_The blind man smiles. She's been released, but for some odd reason, she's still frozen in place. What did they do to her? _

_"Shall we?"_

* * *

It took almost half an hour before Fitz was able to re-wire the electricity in the entire base to open the door. Honestly, he probably would've been quicker if not for Jemma and Coulson's frantic pacing and constant questioning. He gets it; they're worried. But bloody hell, so is he. Asking him how much longer he thinks it's going to be every five damn seconds won't make his progress any quicker than it already is. Whoever it was that entered their base, they've fried every piece of electronic equipment they have. It is a pure miracle that he has anything left to work on at all, to be honest.

And then he sees the damn wires he's been looking for. He links them back together.

The place lights back up again. Finally.

Fitz barely had the time to open his mouth and say anything because the moment the door slides open, a gust of wind in the form of his biochemist partner zooms past him and into the room.

"She's not here!" Jemma yells frantically.

"What?" Coulson and Fitz ask, almost in unison. That's impossible. It is a sealed room with only one way out. There's no other way-literally no other way-she could leave the room without any of them noticing.

"Where is she?" Jemma asks again. Judging the horrified look on her face, her mind is already imagining a fairly good number of worst case scenarios. She's pretty imaginative when it comes to things like that. Not that he could blame her. Working for SHIELD tends to do that to people. "Did those people take her?"

Fitz turns to Coulson. "Did you see anything, sir?"

Sure, if you'd count a gust of bluish wind that made him cross three layers of steel and a thick piece of glass as anything. "Honestly, I'm still not sure what happened."

Jemma, who's apparently still inside the room, clear headed enough to go and check each corner like the brilliant budding investigator she is, suddenly yells again. "Fitz, over here!"

The engineer walks towards her and peers over her shoulder.

"What do you think could make scorch marks such as these?" Jemma asks. The vibranium coated wall looks completely unscathed, save for some dark web-like discoloration. If not for those, and of course, Skye's glaring absence, the room is untouched."There are two sets of those in this wall, but nothing anywhere else."

"It's like they have some electrical weapon or device of some sort. Probably the same thing they used to disable everything else in this base." Fitz surmises. Then, just like most of his previous breakthroughs, something clicks in his brain. "Wait, Jemma, check this out," he moves closer to the wall and presses the back of both of his hands in the middle of the two marks where there's a lighter shade of charcoal, "Whatever device caused these burn marks, I think they held someone's hands against the wall using it."

"Oh no." Jemma's eyes widen at Fitz when she finally puts two and two together. "Skye."

"Whoever they were, I think it's safe to assume that they aren't friendlies." Phil says as calmly as he could, given the circumstances. "And they have something that could make people disappear... Maybe even run through walls."

"Run through walls?" Fitz makes a double take at his boss. The look on Coulson's face made it quite clear that he'd heard him right though.

"I was inside the room when it all happened." Coulson tells him. "Next thing I knew, I am standing right outside the door with nothing but wind hitting against my face."

Jemma bites her lower lip in thought. At this point she has already seen too much to brush the notion off as absurd and utterly impossible. Unless of course it's some residual hallucination from Coulson's post alien fluid exposure, which she seriously doubts. "Could it be some form of dendrotoxin?"

Fitz hums in assent. "Dendrotoxin does cause a lapse in consciousness that distort's one's perception of space and time."

The SHIELD director crosses his arms. It didn't feel like dendrotoxin to him. "Whatever it was, I think the most important thing we should know right now is who on earth has the technology capable of doing it."

"Hydra?" Fitz asks.

"At this point, I am not ready to rule anyone out." Phil replies. "But come on, since when did Hydra work this clean? Aside from taking Skye, they didn't take anything else from this base. Hell, they didn't even hurt me, and I am the director of SHIELD."

"New management, perhaps?" Jemma wondered. "We did just take care of Dr. Whitehall."

"Perhaps." Phil mutters. "But why take Skye?"

Fitz brow furrows briefly at that. The reason behind it is obvious. "She's gifted."

Coulson blinks in confusion. It is as if he has forgotten that little of fact altogether.

"Maybe they need her to hack something?" Jemma offers.

"No one would go through all these efforts just to secure a hacker, Jemma." Fitz reasons. "Skye's as good as they come, but I'm sure there a lot of other computer geniuses out there they could find. Ones who are more accessible and less um, er... volatile."

The word somehow triggered a thought in the biochemist's head. "Volatile? Wait... could it be..." Jemma worried on her lip, "could it be her father? The doctor?"

Damn it. He's been very well prepared to forget about the guy. "Of course it could be him too." Coulson groans, then, breathing deeply, collects himself. He needs to think fast. They've wasted so much time opening a goddamn door for pete's sake. "Okay, so a group took Skye for her powers. It can be Hydra, it can be her father, but it also can be some other faction we haven't considered. Jesus, she could be taken by aliens, for all we know." He glances at Fitz. "Can we salvage anything from the surveillance cameras?"

All that Fitz could give him right then is a frown. He isn't sure if his boss was merely being sarcastic about that last part. Aliens?

But then again, they did get visited by a couple of aliens in the past. He even got possessed by one at some point. "Sorry sir. Every electronic equipment wired to this room has been burnt to a crisp, cameras included."

Jemma looks hopefully at Coulson. "So what do we do now?"

Phil's jaw momentarily clenches as he pulls his communicator out of his pocket. Jesus. The next conversation he's going to have is not the kind of experience anyone in the right mind would look forward to. "Gather all that you can, I need to make a call."

* * *

"You what?!" The Cavalry's angry question almost made Coulson want to jump out from his own skin and into some deep trench in the middle of the ocean. There has only been a handful of times when she'd become this furious at him, and unfortunately, none of which ended up with him not getting any sort of physical pain. He doubts this particular instance would be an exception.

"We lost her, Mel." He repeats, though he's pretty sure she's heard him quite well the first time. "She's been taken."

"You assured me that place is secure." May growls.

"It is!" Phil insists, but then deflatedly adds, "it was."

Coulson can literally feel her glaring at him through the phone. "Who has her?"

For some reason, the reversion of her tone from livid to dead on flat made him feel more uncomfortable. "I would give up anything just to have an answer for that, but no, they left no trails for us to find." He sits dejectedly on Skye's cot, the telltale signs of a massive headache forming in between his brows. "I don't even know where to start."

"Ward's body was never recovered in San Juan."

That doesn't mean that he's not dead. Sure, it doesn't mean that he's not alive, either. But they can't be that unlucky, could they? "What are you trying to say?"

"Skye shot him." May replies, a hint of pride unmistakably dangling in her tone. "Maybe he wants to get even."

"He's been shot four times!"

"Well, you've been stabbed through the heart. Look where you are now." May deadpans. "No one truly stays dead these days."

Coulson sighs. "Okay, so it could be Ward, too."

"Phil, is there a possibility that she's-"

The director quickly interrupts her before she could even finish the thought. "She's alive, May." She has to be alive.

Because if those people do as much as touch a strand of his agent's hair, so help him, they-whoever they are-will have hell to pay.

He hears her take a calming breath. "I'll tell the rest of the team. Expect us there in three hours."

* * *

**Thank you for reading!**


	33. The Escape

**It's Chloe's birthday today! And she's just 24? God.**

* * *

When Skye opens her eyes again, she's alone in an empty room. It is quiet. Peaceful. Oddly, she finds herself lying down on a incredibly uncomfortable couch with no recollection of when or how she got there.

To make matters worse, she also feels really tired-so tired that she could not think straight. Her eyes dart around nervously. There are no windows. Everything is dimmed.

What happened?

It may be because of disorientation, but she feels like she's not in the Pacific anymore. The temperature feels wrong, a tad colder as compared to wherever she came from and yet she could see no air-conditioning anywhere. The air is dry, unlike the humid, salty air she smelled when Coulson came into her room earlier that day.

Everything around her screams oriental: the walls, the furniture, the little trinkets and ornaments scattered on every flat surface she could spot, the music...

What's with this place? And more importantly, how long has she been here?

She couldn't explain why, but she feels weakened. Very much so that even a move as little as a twitch feels like running a marathon. She thinks she's going to be sick. Sadly, the feeling is strangely familiar. The last time she felt like this, she was sporting two gaping holes in her gut, alone, in a dank cellar somewhere in the Italian countryside. The memory makes her shudder.

Heart thumping wildly, she slowly looks down to the gut in question and checks. She opens one eye at at time...

P_lease don't be shot please don't be shot._

Huh. Okay. So her shirt is intact. No holes. No blood.

So she is not shot. Great. Now what?

She slowly and painstakingly moves to a sitting position. Her entire forehead starts to throb. Or maybe it has been throbbing all along. Honestly, it's too confusing to think about.

She groans.

Any form of complex thinking is barred from her head by the sharp drills poking holes at the back of her eyeballs. Grasping her head protectively, she tries to manually tame the roaring blood on her temples. Why, of all days, do her temples choose this one to repeatedly slam itself against her brain like a plangent gong?

Then all of a sudden, something rings beside her. Acting on pure instinct alone, she jumps off the couch and scrambles towards the opposite direction until her back is safely leaning against the farthest wall, headache taken aside, but not completely forgotten. Her fingers search for the pistol on her waist. She finds nothing. She still can't piece together what happened. It's excruciatingly difficult to focus when her head feels eerily like it just got itself thoroughly bludgeoned with a hatchback.

Another set of ringing goes off. Despite her wincing, her eyes finally manages to zero in on the source.

It's a clock.

She seriously just got spooked by a clock. Damn it. She's getting rusty.

Though, in her defense, she's hardly to blame for being confused. Or jumpy. She did just wake up in a strange place with no memory whatsoever of how she got there. For all she knows, she could be captured again by Hydra.

_Okay. Skye, stop for one second. Think. If you can't remember what happened to you last, then maybe you should just stick to what you're sure you still remember. _

She takes a deep breath and does exactly that.

_You were on the Bus. Coulson's team. There were six original members, yourself included. One turned out to be a traitor for Hydra. It's your S.O., Grant. Ward. He pissed you off big time because you almost had a thing. Then SHIELD went underground. Raina wanted you to meet your father. Your father is a monster. You could be an alien. May has an evil twin. You went to Puerto Rico. Hydra has the obelisk... no, Raina has the obelisk. Then there are those crystals. Earthquake. You should be dead, but you're not. Trip is dead. A lot of people is dead. You think you killed them. You hurt people. You hurt Mack. You hurt Coulson. You hurt May. You asked Hunter to kill you. He didn't. You hurt yourself. You shot yourself in the head... and then... and then..._

And then there's just blank.

"Am I dead?" She asks dumbly to herself. Well, if she is dead, isn't she supposed to _not _feel any pain? Her head still hurts like a bitch. She then moves her attention to her hands. They're trembling like hell. She is by no means an expert on heavens and whatnot, but if people still feel like people in the afterlife, at least one of the nuns who raised her probably would've mentioned it. "Yeah, don't think so."

So what did she miss? What isn't she remembering?

"What kind of mess did you just get yourself into, Skye?" She grumbles to herself as she glances around the room. All she sees are four walls and nowhere else to go.

Alright, there is actually one door. A red one. It has a knob, but it looks like it is designed to be locked from the outside. Sure, it could not be locked. But really, what are the chances of that being true?

Though it wouldn't hurt to try...

Her hand stops before she could even touch the knob.

_No._ Of course they didn't leave it open. There's no way she could escape through that door. That'd be too easy. And embarrassingly idiotic for whoever had captured her.

But still, hello? It's a door! Surely, it wouldn't hurt to try...

Just as she was about to reach for the said door again, the knob turns on its own. She jumps a few paces back. Well, more than a few paces back. She actually kinda stumbled backwards.

A man enters. He doesn't seem like he noticed her at all. His focus is solely on the tablet he's holding.

!

It's him.

The dude with the lightning handcuffs...

"Shit." And just like that, everything else comes back to her. The secret base. The holograms. The blind trenchcoat guy.

She blanches.

When the man looks up, he seems like he almost jumps back in surprise as well. A spark of light briefly erupts from his right palm as he instinctively takes a single step away from her. "I didn't think you'd be awake already." He quietly says with slight tilt of his head. "Traveling through great distances with Gordon tends to knock people out for hours. The first couple of trips, at least."

"You-" She stammers. The backs of her thighs hit the couch. Her lungs are gasping desperately for air. She thinks she forgot how to breathe. "You're-"

By this time she could tell that he's starting to sense the brewing panic inside her. He actually looks quite worried. Not that she cares about that at the time. "I know this may be a lot to take in. But if you let me, I can explain everything."

The ground starts to rumble. Books fall off some of the shelves. His eyes widen in apprehension. He raises his hands non threateningly. "I'm not here to hurt you."

"You have electrical powers." Skye says, tone bordering on hysterical. She swallows hard. "You-"

"Calm down." He cuts her off. She can't figure out what the look on his face means but it doesn't feel as reassuring as his words. "You're going to bring to whole place to the ground."

"What did you do to my friends?" She demands. "Tell me right now or so help me god, I will-"

Hands still raised, he stood more firmly. His imposing figure is blocking the door completely. "I will tell you everything you want to know, but please, you have to calm down."

Fear forgotten, Skye takes a step forward. "Where are we?"

"Calm down and then I will tell you." He says firmly.

She moves closer. She can hear low crackling of electricity. God knows what this man and his friends did to Coulson. To Fitzsimmons. To Hunter. She can't trust him.

"I don't want to hurt you." He warns.

"Well, that's too bad." Throwing caution to the wind, Skye lets her training kick in and lunges at him. She releases a lightning fast kick-jab combination, exactly like what May taught her.

_Twackkkk. _

Caught off guard, he sways upon impact. "What-"

Not the one to take chances, Skye decides to give him the finishing touch. She grabs his arm, turns swiftly to her back, and throws him off her shoulders like a sack of flour. She needs to get out of this place. Fast.

_Crack._

The poor guy didn't even know what hit him until he's down on the ground, writhing and groaning in pain. "What the-"

"For what it's worth dude," she says, a bit dizzy and winded from all her efforts, "you really got off easy. My last kidnapper wasn't as lucky."

And then she bolts.


	34. The Chase

**Damn. 3X17 still surprised the shit out of me even though i already guessed that plot twist was coming. Damn you AOS writers. You are too good at your job. **

* * *

For his entire twenty nine years of existence, Lincoln Campbell hasn't uttered a single curse word. Not even one.

Until now.

"You gotta be shitting me." He growls, pulling himself up from the wooden-tiled floor wincing. He thinks she just bruised one or two of his ribs. He takes in a deep breath. "Okay, remember. You're a nice guy, Campbell." He mutters like a mantra. "You are a _really_ nice guy."

But come on? Did he just let a 110 pound woman throw like some damn ninja?

And now, the said ninja is trying to make an escape.

What on earth did he do to deserve this kind of punishment? "Of all the new ones we have right now, why do I have to get stuck with the crazy one?"

With a low groan, he makes his way out the door.

* * *

When he finally catches up with her, they are already a couple of miles away from the compound. She's combing her way through some very thick foliage and he was pretty sure she has no idea that she's being followed when he accidentally steps on a particularly irritating piece of wood. The sound of it splintering catches her attention. She turns.

"Shit." He hears her say. Her running picks up speed.

"Are we seriously doing this right now?" Lincoln yells, who, despite his relatively longer legs, is still a few paces behind her. He tries not to notice the rumbling of the ground underneath his feet, but the longer he chases her, the stronger it becomes. "Come on!"

She ignores him and pushes on. By the looks of it, she's determined not to let him, or anyone, catch her anytime soon.

"Stop running!" He catches a sight of her as she nears a small stream. The same stream that runs to his left. And then an idea hits him.

"Hey!" He calls out again. One last try. Maybe he doesn't really have to opt to such crude methods just to end this small misunderstanding they have. "Stop now, please!"

"In your dreams, sicko." She yells back.

"Sorry," he warns, "but you can't say I didn't try to ask nicely!" He then shoots a low wave of electricity into the water just as she tries to run across it. He watch her tumble in her step until she finally falls on her knees, cursing wildly as the residual electricity keeps her from standing right back up.

He draws closer. More carefully, this time. She doesn't seem like she's about to get up anytime soon. Did he overdo it?

"Are you alri-"

His question quickly dies on his lips as livid eyes snaps at him. "What the fuck do you want with me, you crazy psycho?" She demands, still sprawled on the ground and unable to stand. She's panting like hell.

He gapes at her in disbelief. "You just went full on ninja on me, ran barefoot for miles across a dense forrest, and suddenly I'm the one who's crazy?"

She glowers at him. "So you care about my feet now?"

He closes his eyes momentarily, as if asking for strength from the high heavens or something. "Please, could we just go back to the transition room? I'll explain everything once we get there."

"Sure, go ahead," she says, "I'll be right behind you."

"Ha ha. Nice try." He mutters dryly. "Now get up."

She doesn't move a muscle. Doesn't even attempt to. "Yeah... I think I'm good down here."

He hasn't met anyone this stubborn before, and it's starting to seriously annoy him. It is just his luck that of all the new Inhumans Gordon could assign to him, he has to get this one. "Get up now, please."

"No."

_Why? Why him? _"Oh for god's sakes-" he reaches down to pull her back up.

And then she strikes.

Neither of them is really sure what happened next.

* * *

The next time Skye opens her eyes, the first thing she realizes is that she couldn't move. At all. And if that isn't bad enough, she also couldn't feel anything. All sensations from her neck down is dead-not dulled, not weakened-dead. It's like her own head is disconnected from her body and boy, that's not something anyone would be happy to wake up to.

As if on cue, a chilly daft enters through the window. She shivers slightly at the cold.

Wait, cold? Why the hell is she-

She cranes her neck to look at herself.

Fucking hell! She's naked!?

And then it finally clicks. The forrest. The chase. That damn electric shock to the neck that caused her to black out just a split second after he drags himself out of that stream...

"And the lady wakes."

Skye's eyes dart around in alarm at the sound of that voice. She spots its source somewhere beside her left 's that guy Lincoln again. And he doesn't seem too pleased to see her.

"Before you start screaming, could you please just listen to me for just one second?"

Her heart starts to pound wildly inside her chest. "What did you do to me? Why can't I move?"

"The paralysis is only temporary," he says, "though honestly, I'm wishing it'll be a lot longer than that, given the number of times you punched me."

"I punched you?" She roars. "I'm naked!"

He heaves an exasperated sigh. "Would you let me explain?"

"Explain? Didn't you just hear what I said? I'm naked!" She tries with all her might to move her paralyzed body, but to no avail. "Why am I naked? What are all these needles for? And why the hell can't I move?!"

Lincoln makes a waving gesture with his hand. "Hey, calm down. We mean no harm."

"You mean no harm? YOU MEAN NO HARM?!" Her face crumples into a confusing myriad of emotions which do not even begin to show at least a tenth of the her incredulity. "You trapped me against a wall, teleported me into some secret stash pad spa in the Himalayas, electrocuted me not once, not twice, but thrice, took my clothes off, and yeah... turned me into a human porcupine. And now you're telling me that you couldn't find even a sliver of harm in there? I mean, have you even seen the definition of harm in a dictionary?"

"We are not in the Himalayas, Skye." Lincoln replies calmly, his features impassive.

"Oh good, now you know my name as well." She mutters while she attempts (and fails) to get up from the bed again. "Of all the god awful things I've said, you choose to comment on the least pressing matter of them all. Did you even hear the part when I said you took my clothes off?"

A brief look of discomfort flashed through Lincoln's eyes, but it goes away quicker than she'd hoped. He sighs exasperatedly. "We merely wanted to help. And to answer your qusetion, where we are is in a sanctuary for Inhumans; it's a halfway house for our people."

Help? Ha. He sure did help himself. _With her clothes._ "Right. Cause I feel so helped right now."

"Why are you being so bullheaded about this? I thought you wanted an explanation?" There's a huge bruise forming on his cheek. If not only for the little fact that she's barely clothed, she'd be smiling right now.

Well, at least he had the decency to cover her up a little. A flimsy cloth is better than nothing.

Waking up disoriented in a strange place is one thing, but waking up disoriented in a strange place with totally no clothes on is just downright embarrassing.

And to think she's already getting a hang of calling herself an agent.

Well, she doesn't feel much of an agent right now. She cringes at the thought of what May would say if she ever sees her like this. She can already picture her S.O. shaking her head in disappointment, or perhaps shaking her head in an attempt to mask her laughter. Depends on her mood really, but if she chooses the latter, it's not that she could actually blame her. As much as it pains her to admit it, her current situation, barring the possibility of being tortured or maybe even vivisected by this tall stranger before her, is laughable.

"Take these needles off of me." She hissed, not forgetting how to use the threatening tone which she believes she had unintentionally picked up from May. Shakily, she tries to move her torso. A frustrated grunt escapes her throat when her valiant efforts barely lifts her off the bed. Really, why the hell can't she move?

"I wouldn't do that." A younger man enters the room, a carefree grin playing on his lips. She didn't need to voice out the burning 'why' question on her face for him to understand because something tells her that she isn't the first person they've done this to. The bloodcurdling realization that she's not the maiden voyage of this particular unearthly foray sends uncomfortable shivers down her spine.

How many body parts have they chopped off on this very table? Do they even do that on this table, or they have other surfaces for that?

Oh god, she is so doomed.

Her plight though, as pressing as it is, seems to remain unnoticed to the more jovial half of the wonder twins. He goes on speaking to her, ignorant to the growing list of worse ways to die which, Skye, ever the imaginative agent, is already enumerating inside her head.

"I mean, it's of no use, not until we're done. You'll just tire yourself for nothing."

That sends Skye's alarm bells ringing some more. _Not until they're done? _Done doing what? Preparing her to be burned alive as an altar offering?

She may look meek and kind from the outside, but boy oh boy, she's definitely no lamb. She didn't live this long just to die as some cult sacrifice.

And don't these ceremonies require virgins?

"Your choice of subject, cannot be more off, because I'm telling you, this beauty..." she mutters, gesturing to herself wildly using her chin, "hasn't been a the purest kind for the last twelve years."

The older of the two blushes brighter than a cherry tomato. If only she wasn't so creeped out by her situation, she'd be flattered.

"That is, uh," he splutters, "good to know."

The other guy stares disbelievingly at his senior, "Dude, you know sometimes being your brother shames me." He then glances at Skye. "Ignore him, Skye. Just sit tight and rest until we finish processing you. I got your back."

Processing? What processing? "Wait, what?" Processing is what you do to meats.. or tuna. Call her crazy, but being a hotdog is not in her list of things to do today. Or any day. For the rest of her life.

"Processing." He repeats, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "You know, the transitioning."

"Oh yeah, because that makes more sense! What the fuck are you creeps doing to me?!" Frantic, she tries to shift her body. She uses all of her strength to move away from them as far as she could, but she couldn't. She wants to move her hand, send a little shockwave to blast those guys off their feet so she could escape. To her dismay though, she couldn't move any of her limbs. Hell, not even a single twitch registers. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm your transitioner." The older of the two completely ignores her outburst and responds flatly. "And this is my insufferable brother-"

"I'm Xavier." The other guy cuts him off, extending a hand towards her before finally realizing that she is unable to move. He only smirks when Lincoln shakes his head in exasperation. "Oops. Sorry. Force of habit. Forgot you can't move."

"Where are my clothes?" Skye may be not so much of an agent of SHIELD right now, but she sure still knows how to prioritize. Her eyes dart frenziedly around the room. "Where am I?"

"Relax, babe." Xavier said. "My brother may look like a creeper, but-"

"Hey!" Lincoln hits his younger brother on the upside of his head.

"Ow!" Xavier gingerly rubs the spot where Lincoln's palm harshly landed, but continues speaking to Skye nonetheless. "What I'm trying to say is that my creeper brother is a doctor."

A rush of crimson flooded Skye's cheeks. Oh good, there is this possibility that she might be dissected or experimented on, and yet her main concern is how she ended up naked on a bed. "Wh-What?" She asks, partly a knee jerk reaction because how else could she address the very terrifying possibility that these two weirdos have seen her in all her naked glory? They have no right to expect her to ask coherent questions given her current state of _au naturel._

"Don't believe any word from my brother's mouth." Lincoln said to her, voice reassuring. His tablet now nowhere in sight. "I'm a doctor yes, but I am most certainly not the one who took your clothes off."

"Oh come on, brother. She's cute, not to mention a lot hotter than those we normally see around here. " Xavier complains at his older brother's lack of sense of fun. "Don't tell me you haven't at least thought of it."

"No, I didn't." Lincoln deadpans.

"The fact that I can believe you truly saddens me." Xavier pouts. "What kind of big brother are you? I demand a refund."

"She punched me in the face!" Lincoln snaps.

"And threw you over her shoulders." Xavier adds. He saw the surveillance feed earlier. She's got some mad skills, he'd give her that. "Isn't she awesome or what?"

"Piss off." Lincoln shot his brother a glare. "You peed in your pants the last time I punched you."

"I did not!" Xavier vehemently denies. He looks at Skye. "That's not true. Don't believe a word he says. You've emasculated him, Skye, and now he is venting all of it on me."

Skye doesn't seem impressed. She responds dryly, "Well, right now, given my current state of undress, I am very much inclined not to believe what anyone says. Why am I here again?"

"Snappy, now I really like her." Xavier comments, not even bothering to hide his amusement at their current guest's clear discomfort. "This one's gonna put you in your place, I tell ya." He sends a knowing smirk to his brother's direction before returning his gaze quickly back to Skye. "Right babe?"

"Don't call me babe." She snaps, though she had a feeling that that particular nickname would stick. He certainly does not look like someone who gives up that easily.

"Sure." He chuckles, then adds, "babe."

And to Skye's absolute dismay, she soon figures out that this guy Xavier is just getting started. He leans over to where their she lays and mutters conspiratorially. "Tell me babe, do you have a guy back home? Someone who I should scare off a little?" He chuckles and moves closer to her. The voice he uses was low enough, making it quite impossible for Lincoln to hear. "My brother's too uptight." Then he looks at her straight in the eye and mutters with a firm nod, "I think he needs to get laid."

His words could have probably earned a generous laugh from Skye if she wasn't actually lying on a bed with no clothes on, but since she is, all she did is frown. "How old are you, like twelve?" She scathingly asks. It's loud enough for his older brother to hear.

Lincoln snorts. Xavier glares at him.

Skye knows that she isn't supposed to feel this way-with those two being her captors and everything-but she can't help but feel oddly comforted by the exchange. Xavier reminds her of Fitz. A talkative, and honestly, a remarkably more lascivious version of him, that is. "Um, so eleven?"

"I'm twenty years old, thank you very much." Xavier indignantly replies, his glare transferring to her in an instant.

She shrugs, or at least, tries to."Could've fooled me."

Lincoln watches the two bicker some more with keen interest. He mightily fights off a smile, lamely disguising it as a an attempt to clear his throat. He takes it as his cue. "Xavier, will you excuse us please?

"What? No." Xavier whines. "Did you even hear what she just called me?"

He did, but as much as he wanted to see how that particular argument would go, he still has a job to do. And time is of the essence. Her transition process has been delayed enough as it is, any further dillydallying may compromise the entire thing. "I need to finish transitioning her, Xavier."

"A monkey!" The younger man mutters in sheer disbelief, gesturing wildly at his newly found frenemy. Judging by the look on his face, he barely heard what Lincoln had just said. "She called me a furry little monkey!"

"Now, Xavier." Lincoln says, kicking the sternness of his tone up a notch.

But Xavier is not having any of it. "And I am not even hairy!"

Skye snorts. "Sorry, my bad. A hairless monkey then."

Lincoln tilts his head towards the door, gesturing for his brother to go. The stern look he gives his younger brother does not actually leave much room for protest.

Xavier looks at their newest visitor. "Okay, since I just met you, I'll let that slide. But think about what I told you, babe." Xavier winks, before finally, much to Lincoln's relief, closes the door behind him.

Lincoln's gaze moves to Skye. "Sorry about that." He says, clearing his throat of some invisible lump that has formed the moment his brother finally left the two of them alone. "My brother, he's a-" he struggles to find the right way to describe Xavier, until he eventually, he chooses the least unbrotherly of them all, "...he's an acquired taste."

"No kidding."

He awkwardly smiles at her. "So, before we re-commence the transition process, is there anything you want to ask at all? Anything you want clarified?"

Seriously? Is this guy for real? Didn't he just hear the multitude of questions she just asked them barely minutes, no, seconds ago? "Um, lemme see... how about this: WHAT THE FUCK?"

"Um, okay." He cringes. "I can see that you're still quite, er, emotionally unwell. I may have to use the conventional protocol after all."

"I'm not emtionally unwell, you jackass!" She bellows. "What I am is kidnapped! And naked! On a table!"

His eyebrow twitches. She's getting to him. She could tell.

"You make it sound like I am taking advantage of you."

"I can't move, I don't have my fucking clothes on, I am in one hell of a compromising position, goddamn it, what else am I supposed to think?"

He looks scandalized by the accusation. "You are not naked!"

"I'm the one with the body. You have no right to decide when I'm naked and when I'm not. God!"

At that point all he could do is to look geniunely dumbfounded. His mouth gapes slightly.

"The moment I get out of these shitty needles, I'd shoot you fifty seven times in the face, you jerk!"

"I will explain everything." He calmly promises as he picks up a syringe from a bag. "But right now, I have to put you to sleep. Outbursts like this will only compromise your transition process. We have to put a lid to it first."

"What? Oh-ho-ho. No. Oh no." She shakes her head fervently. It seems like the only movement they've been allowing her to do so far. Xavier's demeanor towards her told her gut that they are not bad people. Was she wrong about that?

Well, based on this particular unprecedented development, she's starting to think that she is. "What the fuck is the wrong with you people?"

"This is going to help you, I promise." Lincoln insists, still walking towards her.

"If you so much as move one step towards me, believe me, I'll shave your balls off!"

Taken aback, Lincoln halts in his movements. The syringe is left dangling uselessly on his hand. "Excuse me?"

She merely juts her chin in defiance. This guy is very much unlike his younger brother. Xavier is carefree and jovial. This one's too broody and serious. Not to mention his gaze makes her a little uncomfortable.

Okay, very uncomfortable. There's something in the way he looks at her that makes her insides do backflips under her skin. "Please don't tell me you have Xray vision." She mutters.

He ignores her, and merely stares at her tiredly. "With that state of yours, if I don't put you to sleep, and we continue the transition process, you may die."

Her eyes grows a shade darker at that. Those backflips can go to hell. This guy is arrogant, conceited, and rude, and a ton of other bad adjectives she couldn't think of right now. "Well, if you even try to poke me with another needle, you will most certainly die." She threatens him, before adding, "...slowly and painfully."

He sighs and settles on to the chair right beside her bed. "Skye, look at me," he slides it forward, then leans closer to her face she could almost feel his breath brush against her skin, "do I really look like a bad guy?"

Honestly, not really. But then again, she's been burned before. She'd be stupid to let her guard down. Especially now that she's alone with Mr. Smolder here. "Looks can be deceiving." Very very much deceiving. "Believe me, I know."

He frowns. "Skye, I don't want to be here any more than you do. So please, can you just shut up for one second and let me do my job in peace?"

She scoffs. "And what, let you people vivisect me? No thanks."

"For the hundredth time, lady, I'm not going to cut you open." He frustratingly insists. "Damn it!"

"Then where are my clothes?"

That sends the crease between Lincoln's eyebrows furrowing. "What's with you and clothes?"

What kind of question is that? "Um, hello? Naked girl here. Paralyzed with needles from the neck down... sound familiar?"

He scans her from head to toe with guarded eyes. "Again, for the millionth time... you're not naked!"

Skye doesn't know why she feels a sudden warmth rushing to her cheeks at his scrutiny. Maybe because somehow, it makes her Xray vision theory sounds more and more plausible. Her blush intensifies.

_God, Skye, you so do not need this right now._

"Wait..." Lincoln's eyes widen slowly upon finally realizing where exactly her mind has drifted to. He mirthlessly chuckles, "Don't get any ideas, lady, I'm not interested."

She shouldn't really feel offended, but she does. The nerve of this guy! And if he could just stop calling her lady! It's as if being called a babe is not bad enough already.

"But to answer your burning question: No, we're not planning to steal your things, see?" He chuckles some more before gesturing to the desk behind him.

Her eyes follows the direction where his fingers are pointed at. She spots her stuff immediately, including a small assortment of her weapons. She wonders how she even missed seeing them at all. To reach them, however, she has to move past him, which doesn't sound that much feasible to her since, well, she can't move. And even if she can, she'd rather shoot her foot with a 45 caliber pistol than to run around stark naked and risk flashing whatever remains of her dignity to mister-I'm-not-interested-smoldering-look-broody-pants here.

"Now with that settled," He raises the syringe once more.

The panic in Skye's features shoots through the roof. "Wait, wait... stop! Hail Hydra! Hail Hydra!"

He stops dead on his tracks. "Hail Hydra? Seriously?" His eyes roll heavenward.

She isn't sure what came over her. It just sort of came out. Hey, there's not much she could do in her state. But at least now, his reaction rules out the involvement of that terrible octopus organization. It could've been worse. He could be working with Ward.

Honestly, she'd much rather not deal with Ward and his cronies at this moment. Or any other moment, for that matter. Maybe in another lifetime... or two, but definitely not now.

A nervous laugh escapes her lips. Even without him being so domineering, and aloof, and rude, she would probably still hate this Lincoln guy. Probably. Yeah, probably. "Okay, so you're not Hydra then."

"Of course not."

"That's good to know, I think." She bites her lip. "You say I needed to sleep right?"

"Yeah?" The crease between furrows as he wonders where she's going with this.

The skin on her neck prickles. No one with an attitude as foul as his is allowed to drawl out words like that. No one. "What if I just sleep on my own? You know, without that..." She nods towards the syringe, shuddering. "...whatever that could be."

"Right." He says as he places a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it lightly. The point where his palm makes contact with her skin sends sparks running straight to her arms. She fights off another shudder. "With shoulders as tense as these, you'd be lucky to get anything longer than a wink."

When he notices how her entire body tenses like a coiled spring upon his touch, he immediately withdraws his hand. "You're not very trusting, are you?"

"Can you blame me?" She snaps. "When I'm all sprawled in your table like some soon to be dissected frog, and you're acting all Mr. Mad Scientist on me." Then she mutters underneath her breath."No wonder you don't get laid."

His eyes narrows dangerously into thin slits. "Say that again?"

She said that aloud, did she? Geez, one of this days she and her careless mouth need to have a lengthy conversation about the importance of brain filters.

Though she has no clue why, she smiles guiltily at him.

"Fine. You win." He sighs as he slouches back on his seat. "Have it your way. But if you're still not asleep in fifteen minutes, then you'll have to forgive me because my hands are tied."

She wants to point out that technically, her hands are the ones which are kinda tied, but she stops herself. Alienating her captor is clearly not the best way to deal with her situation right now.

"Thank you." She stares expectantly at Lincoln, waiting for him to leave. But to her utter dismay, the guy shows no indications of movement.

"Go on, sleep." He goads.

"But you're still watching me." She reminds him.

He leans further back on his chair and folds his arms across his chest. "And?"

She stares daggers at him, and between gritted teeth, she mutters, "I'm not used to sleeping with someone watching me."

"Well, start getting used to it." He replies nonchalantly. "Because now you only have," he glances at his wrist watch, "thirteen minutes and thirty seconds to go."

She glares at him with such ferocity that would surely make her S.O. proud. "You can't expect me to-" She falters, then changes her mind the last second, "you know what, never mind." She closes her eyes. Maybe if she fakes it, he'll get off her back and leave her alone.

_Fake it._

Wait a minute.

Wait, wait, that's it. May pretty much thought her how to fake sleep. That's exactly what she must do. Bade her time and fake somnolence until she can finally move and catch him off guard. Maybe even throw a punch or two at his face for his unparalleled arrogance.

After ten blessed minutes of silence and fake sleeping, she hears Lincoln speak out. "Are you asleep, Skye?"

Dumb question much? And he dares to call himself a doctor.

She chuckles internally but doesn't respond. She keeps her breathing even.

Then pretty much out of nowhere, some crackling sound whizzes past her ear and across her face, making her jump. Almost peeing her pants (figurative pants, since she currently isn't wearing any real ones), she swore, her eyes shooting open. Her mouth gapes at the sight that welcomes her.

Lincoln is playing with lightning bolts. Goddamn full on lightning bolts! They are literally sprouting like jumping dolphins on the palms of his hands! "What the-"

"Nice try, newbie." He transfers the current from one hand to the other as if it some child's slinky, not at all concerned that the amount of electricity he's playing can practically light up an entire city block. "But come on, Skye, give me some credit here. I know you're not really sleeping."

His arrogance transforms Skye's brimming irritation to full blown hulk rage. The moment she gets out of her paralyzed state, the first thing she'll do is shove all of her stupid needles up into Lincoln's ass. Then after that, she'll decimate his body, burn his remains, and scatter his ashes in the deepest trench she could find. Happily. And with much gusto. "You don't really intend to let me sleep on my own, do you?"

"Nope." He childishly grins. "Just got curious of what you'll do. And let me tell you, my prediction was dead on."

"So you'll still drug me?"

"Yeah, sorry." He says. He doesn't seem even a bit guilty about it. "Everyone went through this, even me. It's protocol."

"Protocol my ass. What you're doing is wrong, and..uh," Momentarily, she loses her train of thought as she sees Lincoln pushing some of the clear fluid through the syringe to remove the stuck air in it. Shit."...you kidnapped a person!"

"Well, sorry lady, but right now your ass is on my table." He reasons. "And as your transitioner, it is my job to make sure that that won't be the last surface I'm gonna put it on." A frustrated hand runs across his face when he realizes how badly he's explained his job description. It just sounded wrong... not to mention a bit creepy. Something about her is messing up his brain. He couldn't think straight whenever she looks at him. Is that part of the gift that the terrigen gave her? "No, that's not, er... uh," He stammers awkwardly, "...that's not what I meant to say."

Skye works to remove the stunned look that crosses her face. It's harder to do than she thought. She says slowly, "It better...not...be."

Lincoln takes one calming breath to reorganize his jumbled thoughts. Her abilities has to be something cerebral. It has to be. It can't be just the earthquakes. "What I mean is that I am here to make sure that you can make through this table and..." Cursing silently, he shakes his head to keep the blush from blooming wildly on his cheeks.

Okay, this conversation is getting weirder and weirder by the minute. "Will you please, for the love of god, stop referencing me and my relationship with this fucking table?"

No, not a fucking table. Nope. Not fucking. There will be no fucking today. Or any day. Geez, Skye, pull you brain off the gutter!

This is all Xavier's fault. He put all these thoughts inside her head, and now she can't flush them out.

Much to Skye's dismay, instead of responding, Lincoln merely grabs her arm and pushes the clear liquid directly into her vein. She doesn't even feel the stab of the needle as he does it.

"Oh, come on! Ugh, stop that! Stop that right this second!" Skye protested as she watched him slowly transfer the instrument of her downfall right into her bloodstream. She can't do anything to stop him but futilely scream her lungs off. "Stop!" Shitshitshit.

"Hey, hey, calm down." He tells her with a huge smirk smearing his frustratingly handsome (not that she would ever tell him) features. "As I've said, this stuff is not going to kill you."

His response produces a weird echo inside her head. She really does not like where this is going. "Maybe, but you know what, I will," she threatens despite her progressively weakening voice, the drug working too quick for her liking. Her vision is gradually being engulfed by huge dark spots, he blurs in front of her. But it was not before she could see again the bright crimson hue decorating his cheeks. "...kill you, I mean."

"I'm sure you will."

Then everything goes black.


	35. The Brothers

"Tough cookie, isn't she?" Xavier asks the moment Lincoln closes the door of the transition room behind him.

The small grin on Lincoln's face quickly fades. "How long have you been standing there?"

Xavier tilts his head as he watches his brother carefully. Lincoln may appear tough and broody on the outside, but Xavier knows that deep inside, he's squirming. A lot. "Long enough to see the effect she has on you."

He gives his brother a look which can only be described as disbelief. "What effect?" He asks, acting all dumb and clueless. "She's just some new Inhuman who has no clue what she's gotten herself into. There's nothing special about her."

"The fact that you felt the need to emphasize that merely proves my point, brother." Xavier smirks. "She's got you bumbling like an idiot without even trying. Don't deny it; I've heard every word."

The glare Lincoln shoots his brother is enough to melt metal, and for a brief second, fear graces the heart of the younger of the two Campbells. After all, given the right voltage, Lincoln could actually melt anything, his smooth and handsome face included.

Not that fear has ever stopped Xavier Campbell before. "Boy, if that girl had pigtails, you've probably pulled them by now."

Lincoln scoffs. "You're a weirdo, you know that?"

"Says the guy with an odd table fetish." Xavier offhandedly adds. "I must say bro, that oneI did not see_ coming_."

"Xavier." He warns. For that double entendre alone, he is tempted to strangle him. "Drop it."

"Or what?" The younger man chuckles. "You gonna singe some of my eyebrows off again?"

"Aren't you at least worried about this?" Lincoln asks in exasperation. "She went through the mist without prep, doesn't even have the slightest clue of what happened to her, and her gift-" he breaks off with a shake of the head, "my god, I think she could also mess up people's thoughts."

Xavier stares wide eyed at his brother in utmost amusement. He may be by definition, a fairly intelligent person, but sometimes he really has no clue. "So you're saying that she could not control minds." He says as a-matter-of-factly. Then he rolls his eyes. "You like her, plain and simple."

Lincoln lets out a snort. "That's preposterous." He feels the blush warming up his face, and there's nothing he could do to stop it. He hopes his brother wouldn't notice.

Xavier makes a face before leaning back on the edge of the railings. He clucked his tongue. "You wouldn't blush harder if you got Skye using her standard issue handcuffs on you. You're doomed, bro." He whistles as he notices the way his brother's features light up like an ambulance light upon the mention of her name. "Doomed."

"Yeah, right."

"Barely a day in, and she's already got you all wrapped around her earthquake-inducing finger."

Lincoln waves a dismissive hand at his brother. "You need some serious help."

"Says the pompous bastard who flushed brighter than a neon sign upon our visitor's mentioning of her non-existent celibacy." Xavier simpers. "You're a disgrace to our name, you know that?"

"She owns a gun." Lincoln says flatly.

"I know!" Xavier grins. "And thanks to that Kree temple we didn't know existed, she also has superpowers. Isn't that the hottest thing or what?"

"It is not hot." Lincoln insists. "It is worrying. She can't be trusted."

"Of course she can be trusted. She's one of us." Xavier says. "You just don't want to trust her. There's a difference. You're scared like a little sissy because you think you are starting to like her."

"For the millionth time, Xavier, I'm not interested in her!"

"Yes, you are sir." Xavier asserts firmly. "Very much so."

That's it. He gives up. From a vey young age he already learned that arguing with his little brother will only get nowhere. There's no way in hell that's going to change anytime soon. "If you dare sing that kissing on a tree song you like so much, I'm telling you, I won't be responsible for my actions." Lincoln mutters between gritted teeth.

Xavier dares to appear incensed by his brother's warning. "Why would I even-" he begins, then quickly thinks better of it. Lincoln knows him too well. "... fine, you got me there. But that doesn't make my assumptions wrong. She intrigues you."

"Intrigued is miles and miles away from attracted."

The younger Campbell squeals like a deranged schoolgirl. The days of him needing weeks and weeks of pressuring before he gets any form of admission from his brother are over. Boy oh boy, this is going to be fun. "You're finally getting a life!" He says triumphantly. "I never thought that this day would actually come."

Lincoln can do nothing but shake his head. He can't possibly be attracted to her, he barely knows her. For all he knows, she could be smuggler. Or a drug dealer. She may not look the part, but she does own a gun, so...

"She's not remotely my type." Maybe she is a dangerous criminal. That is probably why some government agency had her locked up in some secret bunker in the middle of nowhere.

"Brother," Xavier pats his big brother's shoulder, "you don't get out enough to even establish a type."

"I do get out." Lincoln grits out, almost indignantly.

"To go to class!" Xavier says, clearly affronted by his brother's idea of fun. "Trust me, I know you. She is most definitely your type."

"She's condescending, and infuriating, and not to mention, very ungrateful." Lincoln claims as he irately folds his arms across his chest. "For merely trying to help, what do I get in return, huh? She threatened to shave my balls off!"

"I heard." Xavier says cheekily. "What a spitfire, right?"

"Spitfire?" He scoffs exaggeratedly. "No! What she is is a bad and scary person."

"And I repeat," At that point Xavier lets out a sound that is stuck between chortling and snorting, and it takes a great deal of effort from Lincoln not to physically throttle the man, "exactly your type."

"How on earth can she be my type? She's despicable, and argumentative, and noisy, and-"

"-and gorgeous. Don't forget that." Xavier offers, and Lincoln, being none the wiser, almost falls for it and repeats those words himself. Luckily, he catches himself the last minute.

"You know, in pychology, what you're doing is called projection." Lincoln stays as a matter of factly. "You keep insisting that that I am attracted to her when in reality it is you who wants her."

"Of course I want her," Xavier agrees immediately, but then quickly adds, "...to be my sister in law."

The older of the two brothers backs up a step, horrified by the prospect. This has gone too far. "Xavier!" He bellows.

"I don't know how you do it, but every time you say my name, I feel like I'm named after some filthy curse word." He complains with a frown. "You're just lucky I'm beginning to feel for you. You are so going to get your hands full with this one."

There is no winning in this conversation, and Lincoln knows that. Once his brother has put his mind into something, he latches onto it like a rabid dog and never lets go. "Whatever, man." He waves his brother off and walks away.

With a grin spanning from ear to ear, Xavier watches Lincoln's rapidly retreating back disappear towards the direction of the main buildings.

The next couple of days will definitely be quite interesting.

* * *

**Comments? Please? A simple hello would suffice, I swear. Thank you for reading!**


	36. The Guide

***hides underneath a table as a hail of bullets targeting my ass started coming at me without mercy* Sorry for being gone for so long! I just can't let any of my stories go unfinished. Life just happened and it _ate_ me. **

* * *

The blind guy is the first person Skye sees when she wakes up. She's then dressed with some light clothes-not hers by the way-which is, in all honesty, _absolutely_ not weird at all.

Geez, look at that: sarcasm. Thank god she still has that one intact. Her mind-not to mention her clothes-seem to be not as fortunate. But then again, given her naked porcupine alternative, she feels like she has no other options than to be thankful. Beggars can't be choosers, after all.

"Hello again, Skye." He greets her rather cheerfully. He appears to finally have shed his trenchcoat in favor of some loose white clothing. He reminds her of those Japanese dudes who teach Jedi mind tricks to their naive underlings or something. "I see you're finally awake. Would you like some tea?"

Tea? TEA?

_That's it_, she internally groans. She really is in the most disturbing spa in the planet.

If only she weren't so dizzy...

"Uhh.. um.." Her world tumbles as she figures out how to make herself form more human-like sounds. Immediately, her eyes widen in sheer panic. For some reason, she feels like she'd forgotten how to speak.

He gives her a small smile. "Don't be frightened, dear girl. Your confusion is a perfectly normal reaction. Give yourself a few moments to reacclimate. It'll slowly come back to you, trust me."

Hearing the cheeriness in his tone is rather disconcerting. He can't possibly expect her to remain calm in this kind of situation. She can't fucking speak!

Still alarmed, she hastily sits up. Blinks groggily. Her tongue is trapped in a gazillion intricate knots. "Wha-what uhh, ahh..." _What on earth is going on? _

"A few moments Skye," he reminds her in some completely zen fashion that makes her want to hurl things at him. In rapid succession. "-a few moments. Take deep breaths."

"What did-" she begins, clearly not interested in heeding his suggestion. Ignoring the bitter taste in her mouth, she swallows hard and tries to speak again, "w-what did you do to me?" Her brain is fuzzy. She can't think straight. Was she drugged?

He arches his eyebrows at her. He probably isn't expecting her to be coherent that soon. "A process that made you feel a lot better, I hope."

She does feel lighter. More normal. She can't explain it; it's like she belongs in her own skin once again. Though the buzzing is not completely gone, it is somehow tamed. The weird sensation that she's been hopelessly ignoring burrowing harshly inside her gut is dulled into a weak rumble. Whatever they did to her, it calmed the raging monster of a force inside of her.

Despite all that, however, she knows she must not let her guard down around these people. She appreciates the most likely temporary reprieve from her recently acquired alien-derived suffering, she really does, but one act of goodwill could hardly make her trust them implicitly. And god knows what they did to her exactly.

Did they paralyze her? Is it the reason why everything below her neck feels like body parts of a heavily obese woman covered in lead?

"I-I don't-" The room is still spinning like a goddamn deranged roller coster. She badly wants to throw up. She's so dizzy; she fears that the smallest agitation would inevitably unlock the dam of vomit dancing in the back of her throat.

"You'd be feeling like yourself again in a few days." He mumbles softly, wise enough not to approach her yet. He's probably thinking how much of a shame would it be if she soils his perfectly polished shoes.

"I-" She groans, grimacing. _Oh god, here it is. _"I need-" Alarmingly green and unable to hold it any longer, she panicky scrambles on top of her covers and blindly grabs the basin which thankfully was sitting right beside her. She hurls.

He tentatively rubs her back. She guesses it meant to be soothing. (It isn't) "It's okay, Skye." He tells her over the horrendous retching sounds she's making. His attempt at reassurance is weak, and he seems quite aware of the fact. He simply doesn't seem to care. He is oddly calm for a guy standing in front of someone who's one puke short of vomiting everything she's eaten in the past seven years. It's like he's quite used to this kind of reaction. Like he's seen people retching many, many times before. "It'll pass."

'_You gotta be kidding',_ she wants to scream back at the guy, but unfortunately, her stomach has other ideas. She grabs at the wretched basin again.

"The transition went smoothly as expected. Believe me; I could tell.."

Still cluthing the basin like her life depends on it, she cranes her neck, and shoots him a frightening glare. She's a small heave away from being the guest of honor to a bulimic convention and he's telling her that whatever shit they did went _smoothly? _"Are you fucking bli-"

"Blind?" Gordon supplies with a chuckle. "I thought we already established that?"

She gapes at him. She geniunely seems to have forgotten that little tidbit. Kidnapper or not, the idea of insulting him for his disability didn't even enter her mind. "Oh." She says, practically holding her tongue to keep herself from apologizing. She pushes the damn basin away from her.

"I can tell that you have questions."

Geez, she wonders what gave her away. "You did something to me." She didn't bother hiding the accusation in her tone. Her eyes are shooting him a boatload of figurative daggers.

"Yes." He says. "But nothing too intrusive, I promise.."

His words somewhat speeds up the clearing up process inside her brain. _Nothing too intrusive?_ Wait a second…

_With that state of yours, if I don't put you to sleep, and we continue the transition process, you may die._

_Everyone went through this, even me. It's protocol._

_As I've said, this stuff is not going to kill you._

_What the-_

She was drugged! She remembers it now.

The realization suddenly gets all of her cylinders firing. The nasty fog inside her brain lifts, and then slowly, everything that happened in the past few hours comes back to her.

Everything.

Everyone.

Lincoln.

"Wait, did you people just-" _Damn it. How can she even forget about that? _"Where is that fucking jerkface?" She bellows.

"We promised to help you." Gordon replies vaguely. "And that's all we did."

All he earns with that response is a sarcastic scoff. And who could blame her? They had her drugged. "Help? HELP?" She screams. "At what point did you people actually help me? Was it between you kidnapping and dragging me here without even asking, or was it when you removed my clothes without my permission just to turn me into a goddamn human porcupine?!

"That is just part of the process-"

"Process?" Her voice raised another octave. "That psycho minion of yours electrocuted and drugged me, for god sakes! Was that part of your goddamn process too?"

Gordon keeps his expression neutral. "I assure you; I'd be having a talk with him about that." He crouches in front of her and caresses her face in some fatherly manner. She shivers at the contact, jerking away from his touch as if he has the plague.

"We are not the monsters that you think we are, Skye."

"Monst-" She stutters. That word hurts her more than she cares to admit. After all that has happened, she has no right to ever call anyone else that. And that's not even the point of her anger. "I wasn't-"

"But you think _you _are the monster."

She rubs her face wearily, wanting to refute his assumptions but finding herself unable to.

A small smile crawls into Gordon's lips. "There's no need for denials, dear girl. I can see you thinking about it."

A thought suddenly crosses her mind, rendering her completely incapable of uttering even a single word.

Is he being literal? He can see her thinking about it? He's a mind reader, too? Really?

What's next, a telepathic dog?_ This is some deep shit she's gotten herself into._

Oddly, curiosity overwhelms her body's natural urge to freak out. And perhaps even her need to scream profanities at the man's general direction. She slowly inches herself out of his range. "You can read minds?"

"Can _I_ read minds?" Gordon laughs openly at her, "Xavier's right, after all. You are one funny lady, Skye."

_Wait… what kind of response is that?_ "So you _can't _read minds?" She clarifies.

He smirks. "What do you think?"

If he's indeed a mind reader, he'd stop smiling right at that instant. She just mentally cursed him and his balls with such profane language it would make a sailor blush. Normal people tend to frown upon those things. He doesn't seem to be affected by it at all.

But then again, he is not normal people.

"Okay, so when you said you could see..." She waves a hand in front of his eyes. "Did you mean that literally, or…?"

He catches her hand midway, and almost snorts when she flinches as if she just got burned. "Yes, but not like the way people normally do. I can perceive with my other senses and it grants me vision way clearer than before I have changed. The same way that I can see that you still have a question you wanted to ask me."

"Ohh-kay... great." She mutters under her breath. It is just her luck that each person she meets in this place proves to be creepier than the last.

He regards her rather thoughtfully. "You're scared of us."

"Scared?" She says incredulously. "Not on this lifetime, dude."

Gordon doesn't seem to be buying it. "Would it help if I promise you that we won't hurt you?"

"Well, that remains to be seen, blind guy." She snarkily responds. "For all I know, you lot are some psycho man-eating aliens from the other dimension tracking innocent people for you to do experiments on."

The grin he gives her is too cryptic for her liking. "Well, you're not completely wrong." He says.

Her eyes bug out at that. She gapes. It is just her luck that she gets kidnapped by cannibals. Fuck. "You're gonna eat me?" She squeaked.

He seems to seriously ponder her question. "Hmm."

Panic clouds her features.

_These people are really gonna eat her! They made her feel better just to make a wicked stew out of her bones… serve her liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti._

_Shit._

And then, as she least expects it, and as she tries to take control of the rapid pounding of her heart, he breaks his silence with a loud snort.

"Eat you?" He laughs again with that gravelly voice of his. "Never heard of that one before."

His response may be somewhat reassuring, but she still can't help but feel a bit perturbed by it. Regardless, a relieved sigh makes its way past her lips. No cannibalistic rituals anytime soon, then. That's something.

After a few moments, he sobers up a little. "You have no reason to be scared. I could give you the answers that you need. All you have to do is ask."

She stares at him quietly, trying so hard to read his face. No signs of deception anywhere.

"I know this is a very confusing time for you."

Confusing time? Ha. Confusing doesn't even cut it.

"We are not bad people."

"Let me be the judge of that."

"Of course." He nods, patiently waiting for the question he seemingly knows she's been itching to ask.

"Okay." First things first. She needs to clear this one up before anything else. This has been bugging her since they first appeared unannounced in the base. "Are…you… an alien?"

Eyebrows rising a tad, he answers her question with a question. "What makes you think that I am one?"

She gapes at him. He doesn't deny it. "I thought I am the one asking the questions here?"

He smiles at her feistiness. "Fine point." He nods. "Have you ever heard of the word 'Kree'?"

Kree? Her mouth gapes even wider.

_Blue angels falling from the sky. _

That's it. That explains it.

_Oh god, she's fucked. _

Only she would be that unlucky to get herself abducted by aliens. What is wrong with her?

"You're Kree." She squeaks. He doesn't appear anywhere near blue though.

_Are they here to question her about the alien blood that saved her life couple of months ago?_

The man's smile then turns into a full on chuckle. "No, Skye. Not exactly." He says. "As children, our people has been taught of a tale of a group of highly advanced creatures coming to our world thousands of years ago, bringing change to some select inhabitants."

"Change?" She's heard this before. From Raina. She told her a similar story way before the entire monumental disaster that is Puerto Rico ever happened.

"You don't seem too surprised." He notes.

"Ha." She laughs dryly. She gets it now. Ha, they almost got her. "Oh now I know what's happening here. You're with her. Of course."

"Her?"

"I see a pattern emerging, and it has her flower dress draped all over it."

Realization finally dawns on his face. "Raina did warn me you may not be as receptive as she is about this whole concept."

"So you really are in cahoots with that slime? Drinking the same Kool-aid? Okay. That's it. I'm out of here." She throws her blanket away and tries to stand, but blind guy stops her.

"I can't let you do that." He says. "And even if I wanted to, trust me, you wouldn't be able to stand without both of your knees buckling from underneath you."

"Watch me." She pushes him away.

"You can't."

"Whatever, I'm leav-aaaahh shit!" Her knees do buckle, just as he warned it would. Luckily, she's able to hold on to him before she plummets to the ground like some legless ragdoll.

He places her back on the bed gently. "Can I continue my explanation now, or should I simply let you be pigheaded all day?

Her nostrils flare in indignation, but she sits back down nonetheless. What else could she do? It's not as if she has a lot of options at the moment. Her legs are useless. She might as well be paralyzed from the waist down.

"It is said that they altered the very thing that makes us human, bringing forth a new race of beings capable of changing the world as we know it."

"New race." She repeats nonchalantly, rolling her eyes. She refuses to listen to any of this shit any longer. "Got it."

He glares at her (how did he even manage to do that without eyes?) "I am not a fan of sarcasm."

Wheesh. Sensitive much? "I'm not a fan of aliens either, and yet, here I am."

"Yes. Here you are." He stares her down sternly. (Seriously, how is he doing that?)

She schools her features, trying so hard to look more interested than she is so as not to upset him further. The guy can be scary if he wants to be. "Soooo... new race of beings... you're pertaining to yourselves, right? What now, you call yourselves Inhumans?" She heard them say that word when they first met. She thought nothing much of it, not until now. "Kind of a lame name, I tell ya."

Ignoring her last statement, he nods. At least she's been listening to their earlier words after all. "But that's what our ancestors chose to call themselves. That's what we are."

"Well, good for you." She tells him. "Is that all? Okay. Thanks for the lecture. I get it. You people are weird. Can you go now?"

Then, as if a bucket of cold water is dumped on her head, his words sink in. She pales. "Wait, what do you mean _our _ancestors?" She demands, mouth dry, and utterly caught off guard with the possibility. "Are we related?"

God, she sincerely hopes not. With her luck, this fucker could even be related to her father. She shudders.

"In a manner of speaking... yes. But that's not what's important right now." He replies. "Skye, the process you just went through, the change that happened to you, only happens to a few select people of our kind. It is called Terrigenesis."

Now she's really confused. Did he just expect her to ignore the fact that he just said they are somehow blood related? "Terr-terri-what now?"

"The mist from an ancient crystal called the Terrigen activates a dormant part of any descendants' genetic makeup-their DNA, if you will." He crouches right in front of her. "We are not bound by blood, Skye, at least not in the usual sense of the word-but we descended from the same group of people. And by some hand of fate, you got chosen to undergo the change."

"Ancient crystal? Is that-are you talking about the diviner?"

He nods. "Not all the descendants are chosen to undergo this change, but all of those who do will be given gifts like you can never imagine." He smiles again. "Skye, with the gift you've received, you can do wonders."

"Wonders? Ha! If you are referring to my killer earthquake juju, then I'm afraid you are terribly mistaken." What happened to that by the way? The buzzing underneath her skin is still gone. And by then she no longer feels any weird rumbling inside of her. "Because let me tell you, I can call that thing a lot of names, a gift-ain't one of them."

"All of us think like that at first. Take my case, for example. After I changed, everyone told me that my gift is something that I should treasure. That it is a precious miracle I should be thankful for." His fingers ghosts over where his eyes should be. "All I understood is that I was blind."

"Now you can totally save up money for airfare and gas. Amazing." Her smile quickly dissipates into a glare. "Want me to throw you a party?"

"We can teach you how to control your gift."

"For the millionth time, you creeper, don't you dare call this curse a goddamn gift!" She screams in frustration. "Just let me go! I don't fucking need you!"

How the guy maintains his zen is beyond her. But it is really starting to grate harshly on her nerves. "It _is_ a gift, but until you can accept that, you will continue to have problems."

"I will continue to have problems as long as you are not letting me out of here!"

"You cannot escape your fate. This is what you're supposed to be. Accept it, and everything will be clearer to you."

"Oh everything is clear to me. You people are crazy." She scoffs. "Can't get any clearer than that."

"Give us a few weeks, you will find yourself here. This situation might be tough to swallow at first, but believe me, you'll be thanking us for it. With your abilities, you can be magnificent."

_Magnificent?_ She snorts. He really could use some work on the sales talk. "Easy for you to say. At least for you, all you need to deal with was trying not to teleport yourself to the moon. My thing can actually destroy the said moon."

He seems to take that statement seriously. "I haven't actually thought of going to the moon."

"What?" She asks in disbelief. What the- Is he even for real? "Christ, you people are really messed up in the head!"

"Maybe," he says, "but then again, you have always been one of us. What does that say about you?"


	37. The Training

**Recap: _Marcus is the new head of Hydra's North American Installations, replacing the late Daniel Whitehall. He is a powered person capable of conjuring a greenish-looking fog that could bend a person's will, essentially brainwashing them to make them do whatever he wanted. (See chapter 24 for details). Skye, on the other hand, is still stuck in Lai Shi, with only Gordon and the Campbell brothers (Lincoln and Xavier) for company. She still has no idea what those people want from her._**

**_(there's a spoiler for AoS 4x14 in the author's end note, so skip it if you still haven't seen that particular episode)_**

* * *

After cleaning up the mess Whitehall's obsession with alien artifacts has left, Marcus finds himself standing in a room full of his trusted people, each one patiently waiting for his orders. And who was he to disappoint them?

"Daniel Whitehall's fixation with special people and alien materials may have ultimately led to his demise." He begins. He didn't even bother to look the tiniest bit affected by his words. Everyone in the room couldn't care any less for a dead man, let alone a stupid dead man. "But that doesn't mean his ventures are entirely useless and unfounded."

Silence follows. His people know better than to interrupt him whenever he speaks.

"To answer the question which is quite possibly in everyone's minds, yes, our main concern as of the moment is finding and collecting gifted individuals for our gain." His gaze towards his men is unwavering. "However, instead of butchering and experimenting on them like my predecessor was so incline to do, I found a way to make them much, much useful."

He pulls a small device on his suit pocket and presses one of its buttons. A hologram of the earth appears in their midst. "This is a topographic map of the earth." He presses another button. The map zooms in, and focuses on a certain island. "Dr. Whitehall was killed in an incident here," A blue pointer appears. "…in San Juan, Rico. He was shot, while the rest of his men where either shot as well, or killed when the entire theater fell on the top of their heads."

Marcus expectantly stares at his people. "So what caused the theater to collapse on itself?"

The men look at each other, as if waiting for any brave soul to speak up already so they can be spared. Someone at the back tentatively answers, "Er…e—earthquake sir?" His voice is shaking.

A frustrated groan leaves Marcus' throat. "Obviously, it was an earthquake!" He says between gritted teeth. "What I'm asking is what caused it? Why would there suddenly be a massive earthquake in that place when it is nowhere near a known fault line, and there have been no reported prior seismic indicators warning everyone that there would be such a quake?"

The hydra agent regrets his answer the moment he speaks, "Maybe the seismologists simply missed it."

A woman, probably late twenties, in front scoffs at her team mate's idiocy. She then looks straight at her boss, and confidently theorizes, "it's either the effect of the alien artifact itself, or there is a powered individual at play."

Marcus almost gives in to the urge to look up to the high heavens and thank the gods that his new team didn't turn up as hopeless as he first expected. He stares appreciatively at her. "What's your name?"

"Elena."

He tilts his head and smirks. That's an odd name for a Hydra agent, but he lets it go immediately. He has more important things to think about. "Her assumptions are exactly like mine." Another button is clicked. Bright red dots emerge on various places on the map. "Here are other reports of similar incidents. Earthquakes without prior warnings, miles and miles away from the nearest fault lines. While here," Marcus swipes his hand on the hologram. A couple of green dots appear. "…are reported sightings of any activity directly or indirectly related to S.H.I.E.L.D. What do you see?"

"The red and the green dots. All of them overlap." Some other hydra agent notes.

"Yes." Marcus nods, turning back to Elena. She seems to be the only one worth talking to among the sea of idiots standing before him. "And do you think that means?"

"Whatever it was that causing the earthquakes, may it be a person or an object… it's in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s possession." She replies.

"Bingo." Marcus says. He has a hunch that whatever it is that they're looking for, it is most likely not an object. "So now, our plan is simple. We find S.H.I.E.L.D., we find the quake."

* * *

It's been three days since Skye arrived in Lai Shi.

Lai Shi. It definitely sounds Chinese, or at least something oriental. That doesn't mean that she is in China though. She's not that daft to jump to those kinds of dumb conclusions. She could be in Asgard for all she knows. During those three immensely peaceful, yet incredibly boring days, her only source of human interaction was those terse interactions she shared with Lunatic Lincoln.

And yes, she'll forever be sticking to that name. God knows the guy deserves it.

It took him hours and hours of mentally cursing and thinking up of ways to get back at him for electrocuting her before she finally came up with the proper name to call him. Lunatic Lincoln sounds absolutely perfect; it clearly embodies his magnificent personally.

After all that he did to her, he's lucky a not-so-flattering name is the only thing he got. He really should be thanking her, if anything. At least she only uses it behind his back.

And to be honest, even if she's not that graceful, it is quite a mouthful saying it out loud. Wasting her energy muttering five syllables is more effort than what Lunatic Lincoln would ever deserve.

Perhaps that's why, at the moment, she's sticking to loathing glares and eyerolls whenever he tries to engage her into conversation. Well, only when she's not blatantly ignoring him, that is.

Somehow, something in him makes it very difficult for her to ignore him completely. There's something about him that fuels such fury within her soul, so much so that attempting to giving him no mind at all siphons much of her energy it drives her absolutely nuts.

"I see you're back to the glaring phase again." He settles to the seat in front of her, a touch of mirth brushing his eyes. "I already asked for your forgiveness, Skye. All I need is for you to talk to me. What more do you want?"

Nothing short of electrocuting himself for her sheer entertainment alone would soothe her wounded pride, and she almost had the urge to tell him exactly that, but in the end, she merely frowns. She would rather not talk to him if she could help it.

"Gordon is expecting me to have completed the prep for your training by now." He tells her. "And because you're obviously not interested in talking to me, we couldn't even start with the basics.

She merely stares at him tiredly. Why can't he just leave her alone? Or better yet, since it's much to clear that she doesn't want to be here in the first place, why can't they just let her go?

"You are too stubborn for your own good, you know that right?"

One of her less flattering traits, as Coulson loves to point out. She could admit that much. But that doesn't make what he did to her a few days ago any less acceptable. He shot her up with god knows how many volts, and for what? She was scared for her life! Of course she would try to escape. He can't actually blame her for trying.

"Skye, come on."

He's hovering like an annoying fly, she's tempted, so physically tempted to actually swat him.

"Just talk to me, please." He cringes at the last word as if it had actually hurt him. He doesn't seem too fond of saying that word.

She rolls her eyes. What a pathetic excuse for a man.

* * *

Sensing the immense condescension hidden behind that nasty eyeroll, his features harden into stone. But still, the gradually deflating nice guy in him manages to let out a wild cry, leaving him with no other choice but to try again. "Please."

She snorts.

At that, something snaps inside of him. It's his final straw. They've been like this for weeks and he's tired of it. Can she even see how much of a favor he's doing her? He could be accomplishing a lot of more important things, but instead he's stuck here, dealing with this woman so stubborn, it's a wonder he still haven't wrung her neck yet.

"You don't want to talk? Fine." He growls. "I'll make you talk some other way."

In a blink of an eye, the table in front of them gets harshly thrown against the farthest wall of the room, smashing it into nothing but firewood. Energy is crackling around Lincoln in waves, and before Skye could react, he lunges at her and does the one thing she least expects him to do.

He kisses her.

* * *

The kiss-if she could even call it that-it doesn't last long. Eyes wide, she hastily pushes him off of her.

Sure, Skye probably had worse kisses in the past. No, Skye actually had worse kisses in the past. She'd kissed evil traitors before, after all. But that's not the point. Hell, it's miles and miles away from the point.

What right does this obnoxious man have to put his filthy lips against hers?

Skye is about to ask him exactly this when she suddenly felt herself being forcefully lifted off the ground.

"Hey!" She screams. "What the hell? Put me down!"

A sharp sting hits her but as he carries her on his shoulder like some demented caveman.

"You little-" Did he just use his powers on her ass? "I'm gonna kill you!"

"Oh, so now you're talking?" He keeps on walking until he reaches a wide clearing at the back of the building. Despite her wild flailing and undeniably hard punches, not once did Lincoln show any signs of being affected. It's like he's not feeling anything at all. "I'm so sick of you, you know that?" He drops her on the ground like a sack of potatoes. Very angry potatoes.

"What on earth is wrong with-ahhhh." She yelps, rolling over to avoid one of his firebolts. "What the fu-shit!" She rolls towards the other side. He's shooting at her at such rapid pace, she could barely give herself a second to breathe. The choice is fairly easy to make though, she's not stupid; she'd much rather not breathe than be burnt to a crisp. And by the looks of it, he's actually intends to do exactly that.

"Are you always this-god!" She dodges a strike that is aimed dangerously close to her neck. She couldn't even get up from where she's sprawled, "Are you seriously trying to kill me?!"

He ignores her as he fires a couple more. He narrowly misses her crotch, forcing her to scramble backwards. "Calling it trying may be a little optimistic." He grumbles. He throws another. This time it's going straight to her chest.

"Stop!" Her hands shoot out in front of her reflexively. Something escapes from her palms. It is strong-stronger than she ever felt before.

Judging by the look on Lincoln's face, he feels the force of the wave way before he could even begin to prepare himself for it. It hits him squarely in the stomach, flinging him fifteen yards from where he once stood. He lands with a thud. Craning his neck, he tries to focus his blurry vision to Skye's general direction. "Good talk," he groans.

And then he passes out.

* * *

Lincoln is still on the ground when he regains consciousness. He tries to blink back the memories of how he got there, or perhaps why he feels like he'd just been sucker-punched by Muhammad Ali, but his brain seems to like to take its time reorienting him.

"Hi there, princess." A scathing voice breaks out, the shadow of its source towering above him. "Nice nap, I take it?"

Recognition finally dawns on his features, and he immediately shoots up from where he's sprawled.

It is only then when he realizes that his hands are tied on his back.

"Give me one reason not to kill you." She says with a scowl.

"If you were ever planning to, you wouldn't wait for me to wake up." He replies dryly.

Her eyes narrow into dangerous slits. His utter smugness is really getting on her nerves. "Maybe I just wanted to watch the light leave your eyes as you take your final breath. Did you ever think of that?"

"Oh, so there's a light in my eyes then?" He teases.

"Don't flatter yourself." She tells him. "You're still a psycho."

"Well this psycho finally got you to talk." He counters. "But can you get this off of me now?" He wiggles his arms. She does tie a mean knot.

"And risk having you attempt to fry me again, no thanks."

He chuckles as he again tries to extricate himself from his bindings. "I didn't know you're into this sort of stuff."

"Ha, you'd like that, won't you?" Her eyes narrows into dangerous slits when she leans closer to his face. "Mess with me again, and I'd castrate you!" She leaves in a huff without so much as a backward glance.

"But Skye-"

Against her better judgment, she turns, glaring at him. "What?"

"But in doing so you will need to touch me." He winks at her suggestively.

She scoffs loudly. "No I don't." She says. "I'll just have to quake it right off of you."

"Exactly." He agrees with a sagely nod and a grin, glad that they've finally reached an understanding.

Even at the expense of his precious family jewels.

* * *

**Sorry for the sparse updates. I'm nearing the end of my other story, _Recovery_, so most of my time writing (which is not that much, I have to admit, since I have two 72-hour workdays per week), is spent on that. Btw, how crazy is that last AoS episode? Coulson, Mace, Mack and Daisy [plus May] are all LMDs now. What will Fitzsimmons do? How are they going to save their friends?**


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